


at your beck and call

by tea_tales_and_whales



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Compliant, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Sadness, Smut, canon-divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-05-19 10:15:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 26,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5963634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tea_tales_and_whales/pseuds/tea_tales_and_whales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of prompt-fills and mini-fics for The Hound Pits' very own drunken aristocrat and his pompous manservant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stays

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "Treavor in a corset"

“You’d think the Abbey would have something to say about them,” Treavor slurs, rising and sinking back down the length of Wallace’s cock, and Wallace chokes a low, bitten off noise in response. His hands shake where they rest on Treavor’s waist, neatly cinched by a tightly laced corset. The arc-and-fork pendant of an Abbey-devout gleams against the hollow of Wallace’s sweat-damp throat.

“M-milord?”

“ _Corsets_ , Wallace. There’s whalebone in them. It’s so deliciously heretical, is it not?” Treavor thinks briefly on the few collected runes he keeps hidden in a safe behind the one painting in his bedchambers.

“I should think what we’re _doing_ is more heretical, Treavor -” Wallace interrupts himself with a hissed intake of breath as Treavor rocks his hips as steadily as a ship swaying at sea.


	2. Waltzes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "a kiss on the hand" and "Wallace trying very hard to save an adolescent Treavor from some self-induced embarrassment"

“No no no, Wallace! Bring your left foot to your right before you take a step back!”

“I’m sorry milord. It’s just difficult to do this backwards, and in time with the music -”

“Which is why you’re supposed to let _me_ lead.”

“I am hardly a fitting substitute for Miss Waverly, milord. As I am taller, I should be leading,” Wallace sighs as they grind to an awkward halt once more.

Treavor throws up his hands and storms over to the audiograph still spilling soaring notes of music into the room. Silence falls like the slamming of a door and Treavor pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. He’s sixteen and all together too gangly for his age, but Wallace is a young man grown and taller still.

“Do I have to go over this again? The ball is in three days and it simply will not do for me to be treading on Waverly’s toes when I ask her to dance!”

“I am sure you will sweep her off her feet,” Wallace says with no small amount of irony, but he has already lost Treavor to starry-eyed rhapsody.

“It must be _perfect_ , Wallace. She must behold no other in her gaze as I sweep gracefully across the dancefloor to where she stands, radiant in the light of the crystal chandelier, and when I reach her, I’ll smile and bow and take her hand and -”

In a trice, he has snatched Wallace’s hand in his and smacked his lips neatly against Wallace’s knuckles. There is a pregnant pause before he looks up with a frown.

“Too much?”

“A peck, I think, would suffice, milord.”


	3. Flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "AU where Treavor warns Wallace of Havelock's treachery and they escape together"

Wallace feels sick to his stomach that his death was so long planned in advance that Treavor has had time aplenty to put all his affairs in order long before they steal away from the Hound Pits under the cover of night. Wallace thinks on the coins sewed into the lining of his pockets, the stash in the lock box under the bed in their tiny room below deck. It’s a small fortune gathered in haste by selling off what choice pieces of inheritance Treavor had left to his disposal. It still isn’t much: the twins were as vultures alighted on the carcass of their estate.

_But for you. He did it for you._

Wallace remembers Treavor would cry often as a small boy, but he can count on one hand the times he has witnessed Treavor shed tears outside of the necessary excuse of childhood. He is crying now, however, silent and pale and shaking, while his red-rimmed eyes watch the distant coastline of Gristol plunge under the horizon, the waves crimson in the setting sun.

Wallace wonders what cause has this phantom pain settling leaden in his chest, lodged like a bullet. Is it guilt? He might sooner have gone to his death than think himself the cause of his own and his master’s cruel exile. But then Treavor puts his hand in his, cold, clammy fingers grasping tight, his thumb stroking over the back of Wallace’s knuckles. His cheeks are still wet but his mouth is set, resolute. The pain eases.

The shores of Morley await.


	4. Ceremony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "something sweet or happy for them somehow alive after the end of the game"

Treavor looks well. Very well in fact. For once, his eyes are clear and bright, his speech practically chipper. Wallace is glad for it but, nevertheless, he does not understand why he has been brought along on this excursion to meet with Treavor’s favoured tailor. Not that he minds, but his attentions might be better directed elsewhere. This is a job for a footman not Wallace, who now occupies the title of butler following Emily’s announced ascension to the throne and his own unexpected promotion.

“Careful with those pins, Huxley.”

“My apologies, Lord Pendleton.”

Treavor does not sound irate. Quite the contrary. He has to keep still or else Wallace would suspect he’d be bouncing on the balls of his feet in excitement. Instead, his fingers fidget and tap against his thigh as Huxley bustles about him and gathers fabric here and there and pins it into place.

Eventually, the tailor steps back, dabs at his shining pate and grins expectantly, wringing his hands. Treavor steps closer to the mirror and turns this way and that, admiring the glossy sheen of the fine fabric. He will cut a tremendously fine figure at the coronation in this suit of pale tawny brown, layered over a rich crimson waistcoat. Wallace’s heart jumps in his chest to see him so handsomely clad. Treavor catches his eye in the mirror.

“Thoughts, Wallace?”

“It suits you,” Wallace says, his stance and bearing inflating with pride. “It suits you wonderfully. I daresay I have never seen you dressed finer, milord.”

Treavor suppresses a broad smile, satisfied with this answer.

“Splendid. Yes, Huxley, this shall do. Very nice. _Very_ nice indeed. You are a master of your craft to need so few adjustments so early on.”

“You are most gracious to say so, my Lord,” Huxley simpers, bowing low at the waist.

“Now, as we discussed,” Treavor says, tone prompt and businesslike, as he turns from the mirror.

“Yes yes, of course, sir. Well then, Mr Higgins, please remove your jacket and step into the light.”

Huxley gestures to where he wishes for Wallace to stand, who remains where he is, mute with shock. Huxley pays him no heed as he inquires after the details of this second fitting. Treavor hums in thought.

“Well, he _is_ attending as a guest of the Empress, but it won’t do if he upstages any of the lords and ladies there, myself included. They’ll kick up an awful fuss. No. Something of the same colour palette, to make it evident he’s with me, and a simpler cut. And none of the delicate fabrics, you understand, Huxley. It would be like shrouding a blood ox in tissue paper.”

Huxley bustles into the backroom, leaving Treavor to take Wallace by the arm and steer him into the centre of the room, beneath the skylight that pours bright afternoon sunbeams into the fitting room. Wallace finds his tongue again and stammers out his confusion.

“I - I don’t - what?”

“Wallace dear, close your mouth, you’ll catch a fly. Didn’t I tell you? Lady Emily expects you at court the day of her coronation, and I simply can’t have you go to the Tower and Dunwall’s Abbey kitted out in your moth-eaten Abbey’s best. It wouldn’t be seemly.”

“N-no - no you didn’t tell me.”

“Why else would I bring you he- ? Ah, it must have slipped my mind. No matter.” Treavor’s hands slide over Wallace’s shoulders, pushing off his jacket - releasing Wallace’s arms from the garment brings them so close Wallace can smell aniseed on Treavor’s breath and feel the warmth of his thin frame against his chest - and folding it over his arm as he steps back.

Layers of clothing remain between Wallace and the comfortably warm air in the room, but for what Treavor’s scrutinising gaze is worth, he might as well be naked.

“Milord, I cannot possibly afford -” Wallace begins, voice hoarse and soft with embarrassment.

“Nonsense, Wallace. I won’t hear a word of it. I’ll cover the expense and not a penny docked from your wages, I’ll see to it. Consider it a gift, for all your years of loyal service.” Treavor raises his voice for Huxley to hear: “I think his suit colour ought to match the trim on mine, Huxley. He’d look well in a darker hue. Something russet, I think -” Treavor’s hand rises and briefly brushes Wallace’s cheek. His voice lowers. “To complement your complexion. And your eyes.”

He calls to Huxley again. “No starched collar. He’d look ridiculous. Something a little more open. And no cravat!” He mutters to himself as his fingers trail down Wallace’s neck to the hollow of his throat. “Yes that sounds fine, doesn’t it. A dark suit, and a paler waistcoat. Perhaps a more saturated hue of my jacket, a little more gold. You do pull off yellow so well, Wallace.”

Wallace cannot imagine what he must be about, standing gormless before his master when he should be anxiously spilling words of gratitude. If not for the lump in his throat, he might be doing just that.

“And for a matching crimson accent, let me see -,” his hand presses to Wallace’s chest, directly above his thrumming heart, its pace quickened by Treavor’s proximity and touch, “- a crimson handkerchief.”

Wallace meets his eyes, finds them softer than he’s seen in years.

“Why?” He asks. The question is vague, might allude to a thousand things but Treavor, for once, is perceptive.

“Because _you were invited_ , Wallace, by the Empress herself, for the part you played in the conspiracy. You, Ms. Brooklaine, the redhead servant girl, and the antiquated boatman have been recognised for your deeds.”

Wallace sucks in a breath.

“But we - I - didn’t do _anything_ -” Treavor cuts him off by grasping his shoulder, voice low and insistent.

“You could have told, Wallace. And you didn’t. You didn’t tell a soul.”

Wallace cannot imagine what to say to that. He offers a shaky smile in response to the encouraging quirk of Treavor’s mouth and only hopes to keep the tears welling in his eyes from falling. He nods and accepts the handkerchief Treavor offers him from his pocket.

“We’ll make a night of it, Wallace. Just you wait.”


	5. Fugue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Fugue Feast, how they celebrate, if anything makes it special" and "Treavor asking Wallace if he has any Fugue Feast stories from his youth"

The end of the Month of Songs announces the coming of Fugue Feast. This year, two years following the dreaded rat plague and the tyranny of Lord Regent Burrows, has been greatly anticipated, the countdown impatiently measured in hours that slip by all the more slowly for the wanting of time to move in haste. Dunwall has mostly recovered with its girl Empress on the throne, her oversight a wise and guiding force in steering them towards better times, a Golden Age.   
  
In honour of this year's Fugue, the Natural Philosophers turn the natural order on its head and transform night into day, giant pillars of steel and conduits temporarily erected under the supervision of the Royal Physician some days previous, and spilling unearthly blue light over the writhing masses that wait beneath the colossal shadow of the Abbey's terrifying stone and iron edifice. Almost half of the city's denizens are piled into the giant square laid at the foot of its steps and spill into the streets surrounding. Aristocrats mingle with the common rabble, disguised behind masks, but no less eager to begin the festivities.    
  
An unearthly roar goes up from the crowds at the sight of scarlet-breasted High Overseer Martin emerging from within the Abbey to stand before them, but he only has to raise both hands, his likeness magnified by ten times its size on a giant screen mounted just below the Abbey's great glass wheel window, to call for silence.   
  
His voice booms across the crowds, sonorous like the call of the Leviathans in the deep, carried back a mile and then some to those furthest from him by more technological marvels, courtesy of the genius duo, Sokolov and Joplin. On the stroke of midnight, Fugue Feast is begun and it will reign until the High Overseer calls its end. Explosions of light and sound and crackling, sparkling fire are launched into the pitch-black vault of the sky as Martin retreats back into the cavernous sanctuary of the Abbey. Outside, hedonistic debauchery descends.   
  
Shortly after midnight, the Estate District is almost entirely abandoned as most of its residents have taken to the streets in search of forbidden and taboo delights or, in the case of some of the servants, have gone home to bar their doors against looters. Like many of the other grand houses, Pendleton Hall has guards posted at its gates and all other possible means of entry, watching for thieves and evil-doers.   
  
Lord Pendleton, on his part, is not numbered among the nobles that stoop to slum amidst their inferiors. Instead, he chooses to remain the relative peace and quiet of his own manor. There are no pleasures, no lustful or bloody pursuits he seeks to chase through the churning chaos of Dunwall's streets, not when the principal object of his desires resides within the house with him. All the servants are dismissed until the festivities are over, all but one, leaving the house entirely empty but for the two souls entwined in Lord Pendleton's bed.    
  
Treavor is awake five hours after midnight, early enough to witness the slow bleeding of dawn's light into the summer sky, staining it pink and peach. The window is open, a soft salt-tinted breeze wafting into the too-warm, too-humid room and idly plucking at the muslin curtains on either side. Treavor is naked, his modesty preserved only by the fine silk sheets bunched between his lower back and upper thighs, as he lies on his stomach and listens to the slow, sleep-laden breathing of the man in bed beside him.   
  
Wallace does not look so stern when he sleeps, does not look so careworn with the harsh creases of his face smoothed away and his hair artlessly rumpled. He is warm enough that Treavor feels him against his skin despite the scant inch between them. Treavor rises up on his elbows and reaches for his cigarette case on the night stand. The first draw of bittersweet smoke into his lungs soothes the early morning jitters; the tension of moving, shifting and breathing, in a soft, quiet space while another still sleeps is eased.   
  
But for all he breathes as peacefully as though he were soundly asleep, Wallace stirs only a moment later and brings his hand to brush gently against Treavor's upper arm. Treavor catches his hand with his free one and laces their fingers together, putting them to rest against the bed, and looks over to see Wallace watching him from under his heavy lashes.   
  
"You ought to be ashamed, Wallace Higgins. Lying there like butter wouldn't melt in your mouth as though you haven't so wantonly cavorted with me all the darkest morning hours."   
  
Wallace blinks slowly and smiles in his way, stone made feeling flesh, flashing a glint of slightly crooked teeth. He rolls onto his side and rises up on his elbow, his other hand stroking over Treavor's bare back.   
  
"Must I pay for my insolence, milord?" He asks, voice still low and throaty with sleep. Treavor watches Wallace press a kiss to his shoulder with heavy-lidded eyes. He offers his cigarette, mostly out of habit and courtesy, and does not expect Wallace to accept, his lips closing carefully around the end in an echo of Treavor's own mouth, but it delights Treavor that he does. Wallace is not practised in smoking but his inhale is short, mostly perfunctory, a means to the pleasure of a secondhand kiss. His thumb traces patterns into the palm of Treavor's hand as he lets the smoke curl from his mouth.   
  
"I could find it within me to forgive you," Treavor says, a little breathless for watching, but tires of this heady, languid flirtation within the next moment, and eagerly brings their lips together in a kiss. He might have waited; the day is theirs, after all. This time belongs to them. For the next day or so, at least, no longer need they snatch for frantic minutes and hours, hidden and secret. Until the High Overseer calls for recognition of the march of time and a restoration to order, they might come together by light of day, not by the flickering glow of a cautiously kept candle. They anticipate each Fugue for this very reason.   
  
Treavor makes a low, soft noise when Wallace's fingers find the tender marks on his hip. He thinks on the stinging welts he must have raised clawing down the length of Wallace's back while Wallace moved within him, and he plucks Wallace's lower lip between his teeth to remind him of that delicious discomfort. With that, the sweet, quiet bliss of the dawn drifting in from beyond the windows halts as though pressed back by the dark, tropical recesses of the bedroom, and there rises a shuddering swell of heat that promises to engulf them both.    
  
But Treavor has a lit cigarette that he's not going to let go to waste, so he pulls away with one last playful peck and draws another dry, pungent plume of smoke into his lungs. Wallace, undeterred, simply moves his attentions elsewhere, pressing kisses to Treavor's cheek, along his jaw, to the smooth spot under his ear.    
  
An easy stillness returns to them as Wallace rests his head against Treavor's back, curling comfortably close, but he is not content to remain still for long. His lips climb the column of Treavor's spine to the topmost notch of it and descend again. Treavor bites the inside of his cheek against the emergence of a laugh bubbling up from his throat; Wallace's early morning stubble is pleasantly scratchy against his skin. Treavor idly rubs his own chin and wonders whether he might be due for a shave himself before too long. It won't be necessary to visit the barber; he trusts Wallace with a straight blade completely.   
  
His fingers grow hot where the cigarette burns low, so he stubs it out in the ashtray he's kept on the nightstand since he first started bringing Wallace to bed. Though its cherry glow is extinguished, the curves and edges of the room begin to emerge from the dark, the shadows chased into hiding by the steadily rising sun. There are birds warbling their courting rituals out in the gardens already, and the day promises to linger, long and sultry hot. They shall have to shut the window and draw close the muslin drapes before long to keep out the heat if they are to spend the whole morning in bed.   
  
Curiosity suddenly gnaws at him.    
  
"Wallace." Treavor speaks his name and it's a soft command. Wallace halts his gentle worship and answers the summons, Treavor drawing him in for another kiss once he's close enough with a hand tangled in his hair.   
  
"How did you spend your Fugues prior to this one?" he asks when they part, and Wallace looks, for all of a moment, like a stunned hare. He finds his tongue soon enough even as his cheeks grow ruddy.   
  
"Would you like an account for all fifty years, bar those we have spent together, or should I detail those as well?"   
  
"A summary of those I was not privy to will suffice, Wallace darling."    
  
Wallace is not a storyteller by nature. He has no knack for it, no proclivity for colourful embellishment or dramatic narration. Treavor likes to listen to him cobble together tales nevertheless; he's so refreshingly free of pretence and guile. Wallace takes a moment to gather the words on his tongue, gaze directed up towards his heavy brows but as though looking behind them and rifling through dusty old trunks in the attic of his mind.   
  
"I used to - I can remember from when I was old enough to walk and hold a spoon, my mother would keep me in the kitchen with her. She would be making treats to give to her friends and neighbours, the ones she had from before she married father, to keep on their windowsills when the revels started so they might keep the glass from getting smashed in or their doors kicked down. She kept giving me better jobs the older I got and turned a blind eye when I pinched one of the littler fruit tarts -"   
  
"You pinched me one of those once," Treavor recalls, the taste of apricot and sticky sweet glaze  a phantom memory on his tongue from so, so long ago. He wrinkles his nose in distaste, also recalling the grind of bone being reset and the burn of a tablespoon of brandy down his throat. "What else?"    
  
"Plenty of preparing for wild banquets. Lord General Alfred Pendleton was fond of throwing those. Your dear Lady mother also, may she rest peacefully in the Void. Very often, we'd get all the food and decorations ready and just try to stay out of the way until it was all over but there was always at least one maid who ended up dismissed with a swollen belly some months later." Wallace frowns.   
  
"And what about later?" Treavor nudges him.   
  
"Later?"    
  
"When you were out of your teens, Wallace," Treavor prompts too eagerly and, finally, Wallace sees what he's about. His face goes scarlet and he clears his throat awkwardly. Treavor finds it endearing.   
  
"You're asking if I...stepped out with anyone."   
  
"Out or in, a bit of both if you will," Treavor says with a smirk like that of a terribly clever schoolboy and Wallace can't meet his gaze anymore. He presses his cheek between Treavor's shoulder blades and closes his eyes. Sighs.   
  
"I spent most Fugues keeping to myself and keeping out of trouble. But if you must know, I - I kissed one of the serving girls when I was eighteen. That's - that's about the extent of it."   
  
"Truly? That is all?" Wallace stares at him blankly and Treavor sighs, disappointed. "Did you ever go out on the town?"   
  
"Only once."   
  
"Oh? Where did you go?"   
  
"The Distillery District. It was inordinately stupid of me. I was drunk, like an idiot. It's a good thing no one thought me rich enough to bother slitting my throat to rob me before dumping my corpse in the river."   
  
"What did you do there?"   
  
Wallace does not answer for a while, long enough that Treavor starts to wonder and to worry. Then he swallows audibly and speaks quietly, shamefully.   
  
"I procured myself a rent boy. I did not know it until after but he looked like you. Superficially, like. Not properly. He had your dark hair and pale, slender body. Even had something in the way of your walk, but not your look."   
  
The confession falls between them as a pebble dropped into a well, forever gone from the safety of one's breast pocket and irretrievable, therefore. Treavor licks his lips nervously, fingers itching for another cigarette.   
  
"What did you do with him?" He asks instead, unsure if he wants to know. A quick and jealous heart knocks a faster beat against his ribcage.   
  
"Nothing much to tell the truth. I gasped your name against his lips the first moment he got his hand inside my trousers, didn't I, and that was that. He wanted to know about you and I, like the drunken fool I was, sat down and wept and told him you were my master's son and that I couldn't - we would never -"   
  


Wallace falls silent.   
  
"How old were you?"   
  
"Thirty-two."   
  
Wallace is shaking minutely against him, but it's too warm for that and Treavor simply won't have it. He rolls over and pushes Wallace down onto the bed, leaving no room for protest.   
  
"He walked me halfway home, at least, even if he did steal away with what was left of my coins," Wallace says, voice peculiarly wobbly, as Treavor pulls him into an embrace and smooths his hair. He sounds almost petulant and Treavor smothers a laugh against Wallace's temple.   
  
"Villainous wretch," Treavor sympathises, tone rich with feeling, and kisses Wallace's brow. "But I'd much rather that he pulled on your purse strings than those of your heart."   
  
"Those you already held in an iron grip. Always have. Always will."   
  
Sunlight spills in through the open window now, soft and golden. With the darkness carved out of the room, there is nowhere left for secrets, but this one time of the year they do not have to hide. They remain tangled together in the sheets, Treavor taking Wallace's hand and pressing it to his chest. With his eyelids so heavy, he does not trust his silver tongue to be anything but blunt and clumsy. Treavor rests his chin against the crown of Wallace's head, breathing the faintest scent of citrus in Wallace's coarse, dark hair, content to merely hold him and doze.

  
Then Wallace clears his throat.    
  
"I also - that is, I remember a Fugue when you were nineteen," he ventures in a very quiet voice. Treavor goes very still very suddenly, the breath catching in his chest, and he knows there's no way that Wallace doesn't know that Treavor remembers.   
  
"You were - we were both very drunk," Treavor splutters, high colour blooming in his cheeks. "I did not think you remembered come morning."   
  
Wallace's eyes are very sombre as he watches Treavor's face.   
  
"I thought it was a Fugue dream, something spirit-conjured, and then I did not. Then, I thought you did not wish to remember."    
  
It would be naive to think Treavor could forget that night, even if he wanted to, flush though he was with expensive Tyvian aquavit and intoxicated with freedom from his brothers - the twins gone away to the Outsider knows where to conduct their own illicit Fugue activities. He seeks out Wallace after midnight, who is a lightweight and drunk on what cooking sherry his mother would not miss, to pout at him and bemoan his own boredom and loneliness.    
  
"Could make m'lord a little less lonely, if y'wanted?" Wallace slurs, his world spinning if his swaying is any indication, but his focus is tunneled intently on the younger man who leans into his touch like a cat.    
  
It starts with kisses. Clumsy, sloppy, open-mouthed kisses with too much tongue, and it ends in one of the bedrooms on the upper floor. Treavor in an armchair, stripped from the waist down but for his filmy stockings and sock garters, his cravat gone and shirt pulled open to bare the tempting curve of his throat. One leg hooked over Wallace's shoulder and the other over the arm of the chair, Wallace's arm around his waist, pulling him to the edge of his seat, and his mouth greedy and wet on Treavor's cock.   
  
Treavor shudders and arches, gasping. He claws the backrest behind his head as he tries not to cry out like some untried virgin. His brothers have been dragging him to the Cat to "wet his prick and make a man out of him" since he turned seventeen, but none of the pretty girls with their practised hands and mouths ever felt like this, like someone properly enthusiastic, like someone who truly desired him.   
  
Wallace pulls away from his task just long enough to say that Treavor could, should he wish, put his hands in Wallace's hair because Wallace is new to this and could use some instruction. Emboldened, Treavor scratches at Wallace's scalp, plunges his hands into the thick locks, becomes imperious and bossy, gives commands here and there in fluting tones when he can make sense of syllables again, biting his lip as the pleasure mounts and the end draws nigh. He's not sure when he started panting Wallace's name, sharp and breathy.   
  
He's so close but he notices Wallace's right hand no longer rests against Treavor's thigh but has vanished below the seat of the chair. From the muffled moans and sighs around Treavor's cock - the sensation exquisite and searing, almost too much - and the motion of Wallace's arm, it's all too obvious what he is doing.    
  
"You had me stop," Wallace recalls, accusatory, and he might have succeeded at sounding properly wounded if he wasn't rocking his hips against Treavor's thigh in time with his hand on Treavor's cock. He sounds as though he is suffering, instead, and glad for it.   
  
"I wanted to watch," Treavor explains, exasperated and already wound too tight, as he rolls them over and straddles Wallace's waist, grasping Wallace's wrist and dragging his hand further back between his thighs. Wallace leans up and kisses Treavor's collarbone, working two fingers inside him. He feels Wallace grin when Treavor whines harsh and low from between his teeth in response, watching in his mind's eye a younger Wallace stand to pull Treavor to his feet. His lips are slick and bitter with his young master's release but Treavor kisses him away, because his legs are shaking and Wallace is so solid and his arms are so warm around Treavor's waist and his cock is hard in his trousers, pushing against Treavor's hip.   
  
He doesn't remember how they get to the bed but they're there in what feels like the next moment, which might very well be bodily pressed against the last, but Treavor can no longer separate the minutes from the hours when his world has narrowed down to the wash of clouded moonlight over the bedsheets and how good and nice it is that Wallace is sensibly sitting on the bed, Treavor in his lap with his bony knees pressed against Wallace's outer thighs. Treavor feels like he's floating when he closes his eyes, darkness fizzing behind his eyelids, but Wallace must float after him because a hot, eager slide of tongue against his own grounds him like a meteor and he finds himself mired by desperately roaming hands.   
  
Treavor drags his lips from Wallace's mouth and trails it down his throat, following the thrumming line of his jugular and the love bites from the first of their trysts after midnight. Wallace tilts his head to allow him better access, sighing softly, and thrusts upwards into him, hands grasping at Treavor's thighs, his hips. Treavor groans and straightens up, a hand braced on Wallace's chest, seating himself firmly. Wallace's name and a filthy oath entwined in the same breath.   
  
Wallace's hair is too neat and that just won't do for a man who was on his knees before him only minutes ago - or perhaps it's longer than that now - but, regardless, it needs must be rectified and Treavor takes great delight in tousling it further, sucking a sweet little bruise under Wallace's jaw as he does so. Wallace is still trapped in his trousers, just as hard as before and Treavor thinks that's a terrible shame. Wallace catches his wrists when Treavor's hands go to the buttons of his trousers.   
  
"Y'don't have to," Wallace says and his voice is too gentle in the dark, brings stinging wet to Treavor's eyes.   
  
And, quite suddenly, Treavor no longer wants to think on that night. Not on what he did because he wanted to - not because he had to or because Wallace made him - and how they lay together afterwards with their limbs tangled and noses brushing between kisses. He doesn't want to remember how he awoke first, feeling like his head was going to split, to the fingers of dawn poking through the window, reaching menacingly across the rumpled surface of the bed. He doesn't want to think about how he was ashamed of taking his clothes off and mewling like a slut for one of the servants, scared of the damning pendant of an Abbey-devout around his throat. He doesn't want to think about how stupid and shallow and selfish he was to disregard the young man who touched him so tenderly the night before as a mistake. He doesn't want to think about how he stooped to kiss Wallace one last time, unable to keep from doing so, eyes closed against the harsh light of morning, but snatched up his clothes and fled before -   
  
"Stop," Treavor gasps, as though he can keep himself from ever leaving that room. The dawn is broken over them and Treavor finds himself now on his back in their bed. "Wallace - wait. Stop." Wallace muffles a guttural sound of great restraint against Treavor's ear and halts all movement, sweat-damp and thighs quivering with the strain. Treavor fingernails bite into Wallace's shoulders to keep him from pulling away entirely.   
  
"Treavor - what - are you alright? Does it hurt -?"   
  
"I don't want to think on that Fugue anymore," Treavor whispers fiercely. "Not again - I want - let us focus on this one."

  
Wallace looks baffled for only a moment before nodding anyway, cupping Treavor's jaw in a warm, calloused hand, though concern still weighs heavy in the lines around his mouth.   
  
"Alright, love."   
  
Treavor pulls Wallace close and kisses the furrow between his brows, the bridge of his nose, his cheeks, until Wallace is pliant in his hands again and Treavor can demand of him to resume his ardent attentions.

  
They remain in bed until noon.


	6. Bath Salts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "an awkward kiss" & "sharing a bath/swim"

"Wallace, shut the door."    
  
"On my way out, sir?"    
  
"No. You are to stay. In fact, don't just shut it. Lock it as well."   
  
Mrs Paxton, the housekeeper, has keys to every room in the house, as her situation requires, but now that Wallace is Butler to the grand house he has copies for the master bedroom and its ensuite. He does as he's told and turns back to find Treavor watching him from where he sits in the giant, claw-footed tub, idly drawing suds from a delicately scented bar of soap he rolls in his hands. Wallace swallows, his mouth dry, and the smell of the bathwater burns cold all the way down to his lungs, like mint but sharper. The glass jar of medicinal bath salts, courtesy of Joplin, sits in the same cabinet as the towels.   
  
"Milord?"   
  
"Come and make yourself useful."    
  
It's Lord Pendleton's little joke between them.  _ You're never not useful _ , Treavor whispers with more than a little affection to Wallace in the quiet twilight hours.

Drawing closer, Wallace notes with no small measure of fret that weighs heavily in his chest, that Treavor is too slender a figure without his trappings of a nobleman. The steaming water conceals nothing; there is altogether too much bone and pale skin stretched over it, a little wiry muscle here and there, a small but portly gut - the mark of a drinker - but not enough healthy fat to make up the padding. Wallace’s eyes follow pale, silvery scars from Treavor’s delicate wrists up to his inner arms,  furrows clawed into the skin where he has scratched and scratched himself until he is raw and bleeding. Near the crook of Treavor’s elbow, cigarette burns cluster like pox.

The bath salts help with the rashes.   
  
There's water glittering in the hollows of Treavor's collarbone, like diamonds in a lady's necklace, or so Wallace fancies as he takes off his jacket and rolls up his sleeves. Treavor's hair is already wet so Wallace kneels and takes the soap from him, lavender-pale, and works it until a generous lather lies in Wallace's palms. This he drags through Treavor's fine, dark strands, his touch teetering between gentle and just the right kind of rough.    
  
"They will be missing me below stairs," Wallace cautions, his thoughts skittering between the maids and the footmen and Mrs Paxton, all intent on their duties.   
  
"I have told you to attend me. They cannot argue with that."   
  
"No. No I suppose not."   
  
His calloused fingers grow purposeful, cradling the curve of Treavor's skull, kneading behind his ears.    
  
"You are ever so frightfully good at that, Wallace," Treavor sighs, eyes slipping shut, as he sinks down bonelessly. "You simply must allow me to return the favour some time.”

Wallace hums noncommittally, even though he likes the thought very much, and shifts on the cool, smoke-coloured marble floor until he can kiss along the edge of Treavor’s jaw to his mouth. The angle is awkward, almost uncomfortable, even with Treavor twisting in the water like a river eel to meet him, and there’s a brief crush of noses before they align properly. Treavor breaches his mouth with a sinuous tongue and Wallace can’t imagine how he must look, hair mussed and damp with steam, face flushed, getting kissed like this. His knees hurt and his back protests fiercely against his hunched posture. His forearms are wet, the sleeves he carefully rolled above his elbow soaked, and the front of his waistcoat sodden -  _ how will he explain this downstairs? _ \- but he wouldn't have them stop for all the Empire and the unknown world.

Treavor pulls back, pupils swollen and black, and fixes him with a gaze like the pinning of a butterfly in a glass case, only Wallace remembers well that Treavor was the type of child long ago to cradle insects with damaged wings in his hands and carry them to quiet, shaded corners of the garden. Instead, he thinks of Overseers preaching from their brass lecterns on the danger of witches and their beguiling eyes. Faster than Wallace’s sluggish thoughts can comprehend, Treavor ducks his head beneath the water. He emerges again with the merest gasp, pushing his sodden hair back. Then he grabs Wallace by the lapel and hauls him in again.

“Join me,” Treavor commands against his lips and truly Wallace works small miracles to shed most of his clothes without parting them. Treavor loses patience however, and, before Wallace is properly undressed, takes advantage of his unsteady balance to yank him headfirst into the tub.

Wallace comes up spluttering to the sound of Treavor’s laughter. Even at a reprimanding scowl, Treavor only grins, bright, gleeful noises slipping from between his teeth. He cinches his legs neatly shut so that Wallace might slot his knees between their outsides and the walls of the bath. Treavor’s smirk is positively lecherous, eying how Wallace’s now translucent undershirt clings wetly to his torso. 

“Is this wise, my rabbit?” Wallace chides, the endearment uncommonly stern, but Treavor only pats his cheek and reaches for the hem of his shirt.

“Don’t take that tone with me, Wallace dear. Now take this off.”

“But what will I tell them -” Wallace protests even as he obeys, struggling a little to peel the sodden fabric from his skin. He unwittingly traps his arms in doing so and Treavor pounces as a cat on cornered prey, hands greedily seeking purchase on Wallace’s hips.

“That you found me sleeping and, fearing I would drown, rushed to my side. You startled me awake.”

“And so you thought to drag me as a siren would a sailor down to the depths?” Wallace’s voice goes high and sharp and breathless when Treavor’s teeth worry a nipple.

“Well they don’t need to know that much. I simply got you a little wet in my alarm. Your overshirt and waistcoat and trousers and shoes are perfectly fine.”

Wallace finally tears his arms free and, tossing his undershirt aside, steadies himself with both hands against the golden rim of the bathtub. A great deal of water has slopped over the sides but the tidal sweep of it has stopped just short of where his other clothes, merely damp in places but mostly dry, are heaped on floor.

“That will not account for the rest of me, milord.”

“Then stay until you’re dry enough for the story to pass muster.” 

“If I am to get any dryer, Treavor, I cannot remain where it is wetter.”

Treavor is silent for a moment, something in the way of a frown creasing his brow, and Wallace regrets arguing the point so far.

“They will not miss you until just before dinner,” Treavor says in a small, curt voice, his words muffled against Wallace’s chest and arms wrapped around his waist in a loose embrace.

_ And you will _ , Wallace concludes. He buries his nose in Treavor’s clean hair, cups his cheek and kisses him in the hope of smoothing away any offence, any hurt.

“What did you have in mind?”

Treavor’s mouth purses into a moue, as though he’s deeply entrenched in thought, and Wallace instantly knows himself to be a gullible, love-blind fool. Treavor’s features are too narrow to pull off coy, too sharp. Instead, his eyes shadowed under lowered lashes are calculating, but there’s something immensely appealing in being the one upon whom these sly designs of seduction are fixed. Wallace cannot remain peevish despite his being soundly tricked.

“I thought I’d convince you to let me wash your hair,” Treavor tells him.

“I cannot go back downstairs smelling like you, milord,” Wallace insists gently. “No matter how much I might like to.” 

Treavor smiles positively wickedly and he reaches for something beyond Wallace’s line of sight, his hand coming back with a green bar of soap nestled in the palm, neat cracks dried into its surface. There’s no mistaking the clean tang of citrus.

“That’s  _ mine _ .” 

“So it is.”

“You  _ planned _ this.”

“Will you now voice no further objections?” Treavor asks dryly. “I trust I have laid to rest your every concern.” 

Wallace concedes defeat as gracefully as he can, which is considerably more so than his attempts to navigate the bathtub. With mumbled curses and much more water spilling onto the floor, Treavor’s imperious instructions hindering more often than helping along the way, they manage to get themselves situated more comfortably with Wallace seated between Treavor’s legs. Taking petty revenge where he can, Wallace leans back against Treavor, forcefully enough to have him grunt in discomfort, while fighting to remove the long underwear stuck to his legs. Wallace’s impatience with the task is soothed by a measure at the pair of arms encircling his chest and lips against the side of his neck.

“They’re rather stuck to you, are they not,” Treavor observes, tone mildly affronted. 

“Might I remind you, love, that with a little more patience on your part we might not have had this problem. Dry, I could have been out of them in seconds.” The long cotton drawers unceremoniously join the sodden undershirt on the floor and Wallace proceeds to do battle with his sock garters.

“Hmmm. The bathwater is getting cold.” 

“Insufferable brat,” Wallace grumbles under his breath, tossing the garters over the side of the tub and using his foot to lever the handle on the hot water tap.

“Liberties, Wallace darling,” Treavor sing-songs. “You’re taking liberties.” 

“And you’re taking your time, milord.”

“Sit still then.”

Treavor has a pianist’s fingers, long and elegant, though he has less skill with the instrument than his past music tutors might have hoped for. But he puts them to use now, lathering between them Wallace’s hard-earned luxury - Wallace scrimps every coin, putting some aside for such infrequent purchases, and then jealously and sparsely uses each fragrant cake. Treavor keeps his nails short and neat, but still they are long enough to scrape against Wallace’s scalp, sending shivers down his spine. Treavor is callous enough to delight in occasionally pulling the hair at the back of Wallace’s head just a little too hard, pleased with Wallace’s groans and answering squeeze of Treavor’s thigh under the water.

Even after Treavior grows tired of the rigorous exercise of massaging, he continues to pet Wallace’s hair with one hand, the other pressed to Wallace’s chest. Ineffectual but a pleasant sensation nevertheless, and Wallace finds his mind drifting as he peruses the painted frescos on the walls, scenes of scantily clad seawitches calling wooden ships with sails - Wallace remembers them from his childhood, long before the industrial boom - onto reefs and sending the sailors aboard to watery graves; Serkonan maidens draped in pearls, and nothing else, languish among the cliffs, mourning lovers lost at sea. Merfolk summoning storms ride the crests of giant waves upon the backs of tusked leviathans.

In his head, he practices the lie he will have to tell when, eventually, he must return to his duties in the hidden recesses of the house, the domain of the servants. He rehearses what he will say, expression schooled into one of dutiful stoicism. He will say that Treavor requested dotage, requiring this and that of him, only to fall asleep in the bath during Wallace’s brief absence. Wallace, foolishly, woke him indiscreetly, startling their master into flinging no small amount of water everywhere. Wallace, contritely, accepted his deserved tongue-lashing and stayed to clean up the mess. And this is why he returns below-stairs after a prolonged absence, smelling strongly of bathwater and his clothes wet. It’s not that Wallace cannot conceal the truth. He has been long entrusted with the secrets of the Pendleton family, after all, but he admits that he cannot create a lie for himself. That is Treavor’s gift, for better or worse.

Treavor’s free hand finds his own, interlacing their fingers with the kind of unavoidable vigour that craves affectionate attention. Wallace turns their hands over and unfolds Treavor’s palm in his own, thumb tracing over the lines there.

“Wallace. Suppose - suppose I told you that I wanted, next time, would you -? Perhaps we could -?”

“Of course, milord. You need only ask. I’d be glad of it.” 

“Very well then. I shall. Next time.” 


	7. In Flagrante

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "a 'I hope we aren't discovered' kiss" & "caught in the act"

It’s possibly rather rude that he’s holed up here in his study instead of spending time with his family before dinner but, really, there’s only so much of Cousin Celia he can stand without Cousin Anna to share in his suffering, and  _ she _ begged leave to take a rest for her splitting head shortly after luncheon. Celia reminds him too much of his departed brothers - stocky and broad in the shoulder, with the same low drawl and lazily predatorial droop to her eyelids - to like her entirely, even if she has grown somewhat more bearable since they left adolescence behind. He’d finally escaped upstairs as he made his excuses, leaving Celia with Anna’s grim-faced husband and eldest daughter, to bray on about the good hunting to be had on her estate up by Baleton and the fine fettle of her best dogs and her horse. Until dinner, Treavor plans to remain at his desk and finish a few letters he’s been meaning to get to.

There is a knock at the door to the servant’s passage, concealed behind a bookcase affixed to the wall. 

“Come in, Wallace.”

He does and Treavor spares him a glance over the rim of his reading spectacles, before continuing to write. Some time ago he might have taken care to remove them before allowing anyone admittance but Wallace has told him they look handsome. 

“The young Masters Callum, Jacobin, and Victor, and their sister Miss Viola have dined in the nursery and all are gone to bed, or so Mrs Paxton tells me,” Wallace informs him, stopping short in front of Treavor’s desk.

“Oh thank the stars for that. Still, I have no doubt that while they’re gone to bed, sleep eludes them. Or  _ they _ elude sleep.”

He puts down his pen and takes off his glasses, rubbing where they have surely pinched a red little mark on the bridge of his nose.

“I’m just about done in, Wallace. Children are exhausting little beasts. These ones aren’t even mine.” 

Wallace hums in dry amusement.

“Yes. From personal experience, I shall have to agree with you.” 

“If that’s a thinly-veiled remark about me, I must inform you, you are being perfectly unfair and I shan’t respond to such slander. I was a wonderful little chap.” Treavor decides to ignore how Wallace is biting the inside of his cheek and stretches instead. “Even if I wasn’t, you loved me regardless.” 

“Of course.” 

Treavor’s heart does a funny little thing in his chest. Even now. He stands and rounds the desk. He plans on pulling Wallace’s arms around him, settling them against his lower back, bringing them together intimately close but Wallace has other ideas. He cups Treavor’s cheek and kisses the indented bridge of his nose.

“Am I keeping you, darling?” Treavor asks, trailing his lips under Wallace’s jaw. He grasps two handfuls of Wallace’s livery and saunters backwards until the edge of the desk bites into his lower back, pulling Wallace along. “I would certainly like to.” 

Wallace has to clear his throat to bring his voice down an octave as Treavor sits on the edge of his desk and guides Wallace to stand between his legs.

“I - I only came to inquire if you would be changing for dinner this evening.”

“Is it so late? No, it can only be seven at the latest. We have time.” 

“I must go to ring the dressing gong, milord,” Wallace protests, but there’s no real feeling in it. His breath is warm against Treavor’s lower lip, eyelids growing heavy, as he braces his hands on either side of Treavor’s thighs.

“Of course you must. I shall not detain you for much longer.”

“Your family - downstairs. We shouldn’t -”

“Oh, never mind them. Now kiss me before I do something drastic.” 

Wallace does and it’s positively delicious, a heady thrill tingling down Treavor’s spine at the sheer daring of it: kissing his butler and valet while his extended relations make painfully insincere chit chat in the parlor room.

The sound of something breaking nearby shocks them apart. Treavor tips backwards, knee jerking upwards instinctively and catching Wallace right between the legs. With a pained groan locked behind his teeth, Wallace sinks partway to the ground, catching himself with a forearm braced against the desk. 

“Oh Wallace! Drat it all! Are you alright?”

“No harm done, milord,” Wallace wheezes, brow pressed to his forearm.

“Then pull yourself together man! Ward us all!” Treavor curses as he smooths his hair and adjusts his cravat with shaking hands. He slips off the desk, petting Wallace’s hair briefly in a conciliatory fashion before going to investigate the source of the noise.

It’s only once he’s halfway opened the door that he considers the possibility that it might be someone other than one of the maids or a member of his own family. Instead of one of Treavor’s own vile, sticky little nephews wandering the house long after his bedtime, or Cousin Anna coming in search of him for a chat, it might be a burglar...and in surprising this burglar Treavor might very well be going to his untimely death.

But it’s too late now. The door is open and Treavor’s long-striding step has outstripped his calamitous thoughts, already carrying him from the safety of his study and into the corridor without. This wing of the house faces westward, and the ruddy evening light spills in through the gallery of windows, washing vermillion and orange over the opposite wall and the paintings strung along it. 

A tall figure in a long, dark coat fumbles with the catches of a window only a few feet away and Treavor almost shrieks with the shock of it before he recognises who it is. Even so, he doesn’t quite keep the sharp, unsteady note from his address.

“I say,  _ Corvo _ !” His voice cracks and he clears his throat.

The Lord Protector stops with one foot propped on the windowsill, halted in flight to the rooftops of Dunwall beyond. Only his head turns, watching Treavor over his shoulder. He is unmasked, as he has remained since he resumed his former duty under the Empress, for which Treavor is eternally grateful. Corvo’s cheeks look oddly red, but perhaps that’s just the light, and his expression gives nothing away, as usual.

“Lord Pendleton.”

“Oh, Corvo, please,” Treavor chides in good humor, puffing up his chest and smiling in a way that he hopes looks far less nervous than he feels. At least he  _ sounds _ magnanimous. “Call me Treavor, I insist. Were you looking for me? You look as though you’re on your way out?”

“Well, yes. I only - uh - dropped in to see you and go over a few things we talked about in Emil- I mean, _her_ _Majesty’s_ last advisory session. I didn’t think it warranted a formal visit and -” 

“You’re always welcome in this house, Corvo. Though a message  _ beforehand _ might not go amiss -” 

“Of course. But really, I must be off -” 

“But you’ve come all this way, Corvo. If you have business with me, pray name it further and we’ll conclude it, if only to give you an excuse for breaking into my home, as you are  _ often _ wont.” Treavor smiles to soften the harshness of his words. “If you’ll just step into my study -” he turns to gesture and, under the pretense of facing away from Corvo, raises his voice that Wallace might hear him and make his escape via the servant’s passageway, “- I’ll ring Wal- ah - _ Higgins _ , to fetch us some tea.” 

A very high, panicked sound emerges from Corvo’s throat before he stifles it and Treavor regards him as though he’s grown a second head right before his eyes.

“Not tea then? Perhaps something a little stronger?” Treavor tries, feeling more and more wrong-footed by the second. No, it’s not just the lighting. Corvo is definitely as red as the setting sun and there’s sweat on his brow. His expression is still staid as stone but the Serkonan in his accent rushes forth thicker and trips up his words.

“I really must be getting on, Lord Pendleton. Treavor.  _ Treavor _ . I have mismanaged my time and her Majesty will be missing me. In any case, I can see that you are very busy -”

“Busy? I was only in my study -”

“You must send me a bill for the...uh...vase?” He gestures a little helplessly and Treavor turns to see an empty bloodoak pedestal and the shattered remains of an heirloom artifact littered about its base.

“Oh no matter,” Treavor says, honestly, even as he dwells on the fact that Corvo was making an escape and might have gotten away with the damage had Treavor not caught him. “It was an acquisition of my great-great-grandfather’s. Some unholy crypt urn from Tyvia, believed to have been crafted approximately two centuries after the Great Burning. Hideous thing. I’ve always hated it.” 

Corvo still hasn’t left. He’s a soldier, not a courtier by any man’s standards, but he does have manners. He’s still waiting, somewhat awkwardly, for something akin to a dismissal and his eyes are a tangible weight on the back of Treavor’s neck.

The feeling is almost reassuring. As though Corvo’s gaze is solid, leaving an impression on that which it sits, instead of something penetrating. At the thought, Treavor feels an ugly, squeezy feeling clamp around his guts. He forces himself to look at Corvo.

“What did you mean by you could  _ see _ I was busy?”

“Did I - did I say that?” Corvo’s expression falters for a fraction of a moment. His sentences fracture further, accent growing stronger still. “I must have spoken wrongly. Used the wrong words. I meant ‘ _ I am sure you must be busy _ ’.”

Treavor feels weak at the knees, sure the blood has drained from his face entirely. He thinks on the Litany. Cold, iron masks in rictus, unforgiving fists, ugly jeers spat in his face. The smell of smoke and burning flesh, broken screams of agony carried aloft upon the sparks of a blazing pyre. A firm grip on his shoulder shocks him from his grim, frightful thoughts.

This close, Treavor can see the creases around Corvo’s dark eyes. It looks like there’s concern in them, even if the rest of him looks awkward and uncomfortable. Corvo’s left hand squeezes his shoulder gently.

“I saw nothing, Treavor.  _ Nothing _ . There was nothing to see. Nothing to tell, either.” 

Treavor nods and Corvo takes his hand away. The back of it is bound as it has been since Lady Emily was restored to the throne. Treavor thinks of the stark black lines hidden underneath and is oddly reassured.

“Very well, Corvo. If you must be on your way, goodnight.” 

“Go back to your study,” Corvo instructs, his voice soft and his gaze focused wistfully, if not a little sadly, on the middle distance. Then he leaves, through the window, and Treavor shakes his head at it all.

Later that night, long after dinner and while they lie in bed together, Wallace grows pale as he listens to Treavor’s recount.

“Can we trust him?”

“I think so.” 

He rolls over and curls up against Wallace, resting his head against his chest, sighing when warm arms wrap around him.

“I suppose -” Treavor wonders aloud, “- I suppose we can kill him if we’re truly worried.”

“Milord!” 

“You’re right. What am I thinking. We’d need to  _ have _ him killed.”

Wallace smothers a laugh against Treavor’s mouth.


	8. In Memoriam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "a drunken kiss" & "cuddling"

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Treavor says with a drole look over his shoulder when Wallace slips into the dressing room, silent as a shadow, after all the guests have gone home for the night. Treavor’s smile fades a little when the comment prompts only the faintest of brightenings in Wallace’s expression.

Wallace is distracted as he dutifully undresses Treavor, his gaze muddy and unfocused. He takes far longer than usual to hang up Treavor’s dinner jacket and waistcoat, pausing entirely more than once until he remembers where he is and what he’s supposed to be doing. His fingers fumble with Treavor’s cufflinks and Treavor catches his hands in his own. They’re larger than his. The palms broader, the fingers thicker but only longer by a fraction, and work-worn. Treavor tangles their fingers together until he can’t really be sure if his signet ring still sits on his or Wallace’s. He releases them only to unbutton Wallace’s cuffs and roll them up his wrists, slipping his hands inside the folded fabric to press against warm skin.

The touch seems to bring him back. Wallace meets his eyes, clear but confused.

“I have laid a little something by for us, Wallace,” Treavor announces.

“Milord?”

Treavor goes to the little cabinet in the corner of the room and pulls out a bottle of brandy. A drawing of a nude woman straddling the curling typeface on the lurid orange label marks it as something distilled out the back end of a slophouse. It’s dirt rotten cheap, unlike anything else Treavor has ever let into the house, bar whatever poison has lined his belly in the past, stumbling home from a night of slumming it in some truly abysmal public houses - and even most of that ended up on the wide, cobbled streets outside. Treavor closes his eyes to swallow down the resurgent memory of bile in his throat, exhales steadily, and turns back to Wallace.

Wallace frowns at the bottle but not before recognition sparks in his eyes.

“I thought we might share it,” Treavor explains as he uncorks the bottle over by the sideboard and fills two glasses he plucks from the silver tray sitting there.

“Treavor -”

“I liked your mother, Wallace. She was bossy and her crepes were never any good at all, but she was kind and she never shooed me out of the kitchens. I liked her.”

“She liked you too,” Wallace manages hoarsely, eyes suddenly shining. “You  _ remembered _ .” 

Treavor pushes a glass into Wallace’s hands, looking away because colour and prickly heat is crawling up his neck.

“What does this make it?” he says instead.

“Eighteen years.”

Treavor raises his glass and Wallace mirrors him. 

“Well then.” Treavor clears his throat. “To the memory of an excellent woman. She is missed.”

“To mum.” 

They drink. Treavor regrets it almost immediately, calling on all his reserves of restraint to keep him from spitting the foul, burning liquid onto the floor. The carpet deserves no such punishment.

“Just the way mum liked it,” Wallace gasps, and it’s the most cheerful he’s looked all day. Treavor pours them both another measure against his better judgement.

In retrospect, he ought not have been so generous with his portioning. Not for Wallace, at least. It takes a great deal to get Treavor even tipsy nowadays, but just about four glasses of this odious swill has done the job superbly. Meanwhile, Wallace - an irredeemable lightweight - who waved away a refill after only his second drink, has far surpassed Treavor’s state of inebriation. He’s an oddly poised sort of drunk, carrying himself so carefully and enunciating his words ever so clearly, but only up to a point, and that point was about halfway through his second measure of brandy. Finishing off the rest of the glass, the elocution, a product only of study, diligent practice, and his father’s instruction, is the first thing to go. 

“She always liked this kind but she had t’ hide the bottle from dad,” Wallace slurs, one of his thighs neatly situated between Treavor’s legs. “Don’t think he’d a minded her drinkin’ once in while none, but the - the unmentionables on the bottle, he’d a taken offence.”

“You’re talking about a pair of printed tits? Really, Wallace?”

“Shhhhhhh,” Wallace presses a finger to his lips and then Treavor’s. “ _ Unmentionables _ .”

Wallace has shed his clothes down to his shirtsleeves, which are still rolled up enough to display his unfairly attractive wrists and meaty forearms, and his hair is tousled from running a hand through it. He sounds little better than a common, dirty-shirted labourer, with his voice dragging rough and gravelly over the syllables. Treavor feels as though he’s fallen into bed with a street thug, only it’s  _ Wallace _ , and Treavor knows he has nothing to fear - he knows Wallace would  _ never _ hurt him, not like that - but the association has him wondering what terrible, beastly, debauched things Wallace might be capable of. The thought has him restless, mind buzzing, squirming in the clothes Wallace never got around to taking off him. It doesn’t help that they’re both lying on the bed now, Wallace warm and heavy and half on top of him, head tucked into the crook of Treavor’s neck.

“It’s too hot,” Treavor complains, plucking at his clothes. “Take these damn things off me.”

Treavor is so glad the fashion for men is no longer a painfully waspish waist. He doesn’t think he could find the patience to sit upright and try to keep still while Wallace battles with the stays of a corset. As is, all he has to do is sink against the mattress as Wallace unbuttons his shirt, pushing it off his shoulders, and sloppily kisses his way down the narrow expanse of Treavor’s chest and belly. Settling between Treavor’s legs and wrapping his arms around Treavor’s thighs, Wallace’s stubble rasps against the sparse hair beneath his navel. 

“Wallace -”

He mumbles something unintelligible as he follows the trail downwards, mouthing at the bulge in Treavor’s trousers. Treavor stifles a curse, shuddering and arching off the bed.

“Wallace, come  _ here _ ,” he commands, a little breathless.

Wallace has never been the most artful of lovers, nor particularly inventive; he isn’t prone to suggesting delightfully vile acts of a salacious nature. He makes up for this lack with diligence and care, his eagerness to please. Treavor knows Wallace is indeed quite drunk if his kisses are this filthy, comprised mostly of lewd and bold strokes of tongue, and he’s settling his whole weight against the body beneath him.  
  
It’s pleasant. Especially so when Wallace parts from him only to nuzzle against his neck, almost like he’d like nothing better than to burrow into Treavor and stay there. On his part, Treavor thinks the fit would be a snug one, but he’s more than willing to make it work. He wraps arms around Wallace, smugly pleased like a small child successfully feeding a large and notoriously antisocial hound out of his palm, and turns his lips to Wallace’s temple.


	9. Exchange

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "desperate, heartfelt, painful in their sincerity, "I love you"s from either of them to the other"

“I love you,” Treavor moans just before he tips over the razor sharp edge of orgasm, spilling into Wallace as he does so. Coming back down, he’s drenched in sweat, hands shaking on Wallace’s spread thighs, as his chest heaves for breath. Treavor raises his head, finally, to find Wallace staring at him in dewy-eyed askance.

“You only say that when you’ve been drinking.” The words come as though messily plucked from his throat, wet and rough.

The evidence of Wallace’s spend gathers like pearls in the coarse, dark hair on his stomach. Lovebites litter his throat and shoulders, dark plum against the torrid flush of his skin. He’s just as mussed and sticky as his master. Treavor leans down and kisses him, hard, shuddering when the motion reminds him of where they join. He feels like he’s willfully, foolishly tossed away a piece of himself, a piece of something he was sure he had none left to give, that he never expected to be cherished, only to find it caught and cradled in careful hands. It feels like release.

“I meant it, Wallace. Every word. And I mean it now.”

“Why not say it before?”

“Because - because everything takes less courage when drunk. Far less courage than I ever have sober.” The words are bitter, spat out. Treavor drags the back of his hand over his chin as though he can wipe away the taste of them as easily as spittle. Wallace reaches up and cups his burning cheeks, kisses him like his master’s bitter-salt and shame are all that will sustain him. His tongue is accustomed to them.

“I love _you._ ”


	10. Out Loud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Modern College AU
> 
> Prompt: "I love you - loud, so everyone can hear"

The music is leaving an indelible imprint on his eardrums, pulsating just faster than his beating heart and throbbing in tandem with his developing headache. The underlying reek of kadr is only just stronger than the miasma of sweat and perfume and tobacco smoke that permeates the entire house. The Attano siblings and their cousin are renowned for their wild parties, their closest associates packed into their second-floor apartment. Wallace sincerely regrets letting Lydia talk him into this. 

“But your boy is here,” she half gargles around a mouthful of something dangerously sweet and alcoholic when he tells her he’s leaving...just five minutes after arriving. Before Wallace can vehemently protest that Treavor Pendleton is most certainly not his  _ boy _ , Lydia pushes a similar concoction into his hands and sashays away through the writhing crowd - composed mostly of Serkonan college students - to greet and thank the party’s hosts. She’s weirdly courteous like that.

Wallace watches her go like a man on a desert island seeing a ship vanish over the horizon. He resolutely ignores how just the smell of his drink alone feels like it’s going to strip his nostrils of skin and takes a sip. He has a sweet-tooth, but his taste buds are so offended by the initial assault, he does them the courtesy of taking a larger mouthful to kill them off entirely. He nearly spits it back out into the plastic cup. Instead, Wallace swallows, shudders, and puts the drink down, tucking his arms as close to his burly body as he can manage to avoid unduly touching anyone.

He runs into the Attano cousin on his way to the kitchenette. Daud, if Wallace remembers correctly. His tawny face is scarred and his muscled arms, fairly straining in their skin-tight red t-shirt, are tattooed. He’s not known for his artful application of polite small talk.

“What cat coughed you up in here then? Aren’t you a little old for college parties?”

Somewhere along the way Wallace has collected a second drink, shoved at him by some loud, drunk, pretty Serkonan girl babbling at him like she thought he knew her tongue, and it’s just as poisonous as the last. He just about hides the disdainful curl of his lip behind the rim of the cup. 

“I’m only 26, I’ll have you know. Lydia Brooklaine brought me.” He half coughs at the burn of liquor searing down this throat. “I’d rather she hadn’t.” 

“Is that so? I’d have rather thought it was that skinny little rich twink Corvo keeps around as a friend because he feeds him on occasion -”

“Haven’t you also graduated?” Wallace interjects, cheeks burning. “A while ago in fact?”

“Three years ago. Double major in Physics and Astronomy.” Daud sips his drink, winces.

“Oh? What have you done with that, if you don’t mind my asking?” Wallace asks, feeling more than a little spiteful. Surely anyone with such a degree ought to be doing more in life than sleazing around like a Serkonan mobster.

“I run a daycare,” says Daud and Wallace stares, only just keeps from dribbling his drink down his chin in shock. “Is that mostly tequila?” Daud points to the cup in his hand, sounding bored. “If it is, I’ll take it off your hands.”

Wallace is glad to be rid of it, pushing it at Daud and hurriedly excusing himself. Daud calls after his retreating back.

“I think I saw your boyfriend in the kitchen, talking to the hamhock and stripper priest he calls roommates.” 

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Wallace grits out through his teeth even though there’s no feasible way Daud can hear him.  _ Perhaps because you like that he thinks that.  _ Wallace can’t deny it. Not to himself. 

It starts with tutoring. Wallace putting off a core class in math he needs to graduate but dreads like a death sentence. He doesn’t get numbers. He just doesn’t and he never has. He’s lucky he even scraped by into post-secondary with grades like his in math, not that he’d ever admit it. Then: “My girlfriend says she knows someone who can help,” Lydia says to him over the phone when he calls her, following the return of an assignment with a truly abysmal mark. He’s biting back tears she might well hold over him the next time he decides to get uppity, and agrees to this proposal. 

The tutor turns out to be a friend of a friend of Lydia’s girlfriend, Treavor Pendleton, a second year Theatre student, and three years younger than Wallace. He’s not a bad actor but he'd make a cracking accountant, or even a half-decent teacher if he didn’t drink like a fish or condescend literally everyone. Including Wallace. Especially Wallace. And yet, by the end of the month, after a midterm returned with a solid “86” printed at the top, Wallace is down on his knees between Treavor’s legs for the better part of an hour. They’ve been fooling around and going out to dinner every so often ever since. 

Wallace is stupidly besotted with him.

“Why?” Lydia demands often, hands in the air. But Cecelia, tucked cosily next to her on Wallace’s futon, smiles like she understands.

Treavor is a smart-mouthed little shit with too much money and far too little self-esteem and a self-preservation instinct that seesaws between excellent and subpar. He’s quite clever for all that he pulls so little weight in all of his classes, and Wallace has heard it said that the only reason he’s slumming it in community college with the rest of them is because he was expelled from Dunwall’s prestigious Academy following an incident of intoxicated driving.

“I fucked one of the profs and the department found out about it. I got way too fucking drunk and high, and tried to kill myself while they were deciding whether to expel me or not.” He remembers Treavor telling him, voice far too casually flippant, after about the fourth time they ended up naked in bed together. Wallace doesn't quite know how true that is; Treavor is, at times, an incorrigible liar. That said, there’s nothing fake about the scars on his wrists, nor how Treavor kisses him like he’s parsing out payment while he quietly asks Wallace to keep that between just the two of them. Wallace will take the secret to his grave, and he often wonders if that’s not why he’s so drawn to Treavor. 

There are the obvious reasons. Treavor is clever and quite charming, when he wants to be. Wickedly funny. Good-looking in a sharp, too thin, unconventional sort of way. Experimental and easy in the bedroom. But he’s peculiarly generous with himself, like nobody else Wallace has ever met. Generous with these weighty little moments of vulnerability, where Wallace is allowed to see the prickliness and venom in him fall away to unmask something softer. Treavor is generous with his secrets too, if they are indeed that, gifting bits and pieces of them to Wallace as though tentatively putting them in a safe he doesn’t quite trust not to be cracked. Has he trusted others like this? Wallace is inclined to think so, yes, if the way Treavor watches him with careful eyes and reveals the truth in bland, unfeeling tones is any indication.

The song has changed, Wallace realises, although he recognises it no more than whatever was playing previously. The music blends together seamlessly and Wallace has no idea how long he’s been here now but, since losing Lydia, he’s had no fewer than ten drinks pushed at him by various people. Some he’d managed to refuse but others wouldn’t take no for an answer. Stupidly, he’s taken sips from each one, if not outright gulps, hoping to find something actually drinkable. His tongue feels fuzzy and, blessedly, everything is a little muted now that he’s focusing on making his way through the throng without knocking anyone over rather than the deafening music. 

The song playing now is something with Serkonan lyrics and a low, filthy beat. He knows through Treavor that Corvo isn’t much one for dance music and, from what Wallace knows of Daud, the idea of him listening to this is laughable, so it must be the sister’s selection. The tidal pull of people spits Wallace out of the kitchen, back into the living room, and he can see her over by the stereo system. Drink in hand, she’s conversing with Lydia, Corvo; Jessamine, Corvo’s one-time girlfriend; and Jessamine’s current steady girlfriend, a gaunt, dark-haired woman with floral tattoos winding around her arms. Zenaida, already tall, towers over them in her heels.

Wallace thinks about making his way over to them, tersely thanking Corvo and Zenaida for hosting, and taking Lydia aside to beg her to tell him how to get home. Then he catches sight of the two men Daud had mistakenly told him were in the kitchen and changes his mind.

“Hamho -  _ Havelock _ . Havelock. Farley Havelock. Hello.” Wallace clears his throat and staidly sets down his drink - it’s the fifth one forced upon him that he hasn’t been able to get rid of yet - and refuses to touch it again.  _ Fucking hell. _ He prays his cheeks aren’t red when Farley turns around at the mangled greeting, bushy eyebrows raised. He’s a little bit older than Wallace, a little bit shorter, and a lot more cut. The muscle shirt he wears reads “ _ Oh, I fucking lift, bro” _ in neon print and Wallace doesn’t doubt it in the slightest. Farley hands him a beer and Wallace almost sighs with relief. Beer isn’t really his thing, but it’s much more his speed than hard liquor.

Wallace nods at Teague, standing on the other side of Farley, tipping his beer in salute and Teague responds with a similar gesture. He’s wearing svelte shades of charcoal and a white t-shirt under a form-fitting leather jacket and Wallace is resolutely trying not to think of the words “ _ stripper priest _ .” 

“Martin. Hello.”

“Higgins. Wallace? Surely we’re on a first name basis now, given that -”

“I’ll answer to anything but Wally,” Wallace interrupts, hoping to avert the course he knows the conversation will take if Teague continues. He immediately regrets coming over here.

“...right. Excellent.”

They stand in silence, sipping their drinks until Farley clears his throat and nudges Teague.

“So...Wallace. Strange that we should see you here. I didn’t think this was your scene.” Teague’s voice is smooth, unlike the cheap whiskey he’s drinking.

“It’s not.” Wallace says, grimacing as someone rubs up uncomfortably close against his back in rhythm with the music. “It’s really, really not.” Stepping away from the stranger at his back brings him to a point where he can no longer deny conversation with Teague and Farley, but he prefers it to being humped. Wallace wonders if it’s not too late to dive back into the anonymity of the crowd and struggle over to Lydia.

Teague grins. 

“Looking for someone?” he asks, casually, and Farley huffs a guttural laugh from the back of his throat, awaiting Wallace’s response with a sideways, knowing smile. Wallace hates them a little bit; his relationship with them is one solely defined by their mutual association with Treavor, who currently isn’t here and Wallace is feeling his absence most acutely. Wallace has no idea what to say to these two men on his own, hyper aware that they both must barely tolerate him no matter what Treavor says, and, if their mocking is any indication, he’s only falling further in their opinion. He longs for release.

“‘Bout fucking time, Tips,” Farley grumbles at someone approaching from behind Wallace, and Wallace finds himself rooted to the spot. Farley’s face relaxes with the relief of a man freed from stressful social interaction. “We were about to send out a search party.”

“Ward us all, Farley, you’re playing mother hen again. Perhaps, next time I go out for a smoke, you can designate a time limit and I’ll text you if I think I’ll be back even a minute late,” is the snide response.

“Oh shut the fuck up.”

Wallace registers the scent of a familiar cologne mixed with cigarette smoke and hypoallergenic laundry detergent at the same time he recognises whose voice it belongs to. Nevertheless, he half jumps at the warm, fine-boned body that sidles up and presses against his side in a half-embrace.

“Hey, grumpy. You lost?” purrs a familiar voice, close to his ear, and it’s like the music just falls away. Attention soundly stolen, the first thing that catches his eye, as always, is Treavor’s mouth, pulled into a composed but delighted smile. He has very white, very even teeth. Wallace runs his tongue over his own, mouth closed, eyes cast down to where Treavor’s soft v-neck shows the sharp ridge of his collarbone. Wallace likes Treavor’s clothes on him. He does; they suit him well in style and shade, and must have cost a fortune for all that they look like Treavor might have scrounged them out of a thrift store bargain bin, but Wallace knows how much more he prefers to see them woefully discarded on Treavor’s bedroom floor.

_ You look good. _ He must have said it aloud too because Treavor’s leaning in close and wrapping an arm intimately around his waist. His mouth remains poised, dryly amused, but Wallace doesn’t miss how his eyes crinkle with pleasure at the corners. He might have imagined it but he’s sure he sees Treavor shoot Teague and Farley a brief but loaded look, and make a sort of shooing gesture, taking two fingers from the grip on his drink to wave them away. Farley and Teague don’t leave exactly, exchanging the look of two men ordered around by someone half their size, but they both disengage from the conversation and take a step away to continue their own.

“Leave room for the Everyman, you two,” Teague remarks over his shoulder and Farley laughs into his bottle of beer. 

“You clean up nice yourself,” Treavor says when it’s just the two of them, lips brushing Wallace’s ear so he doesn’t have to shout. He might just be being nice, even though that’s not usually Treavor’s style at all - try snide and scathing - but Wallace internally thanks Lydia anyway for raiding his closet and plucking out the nicest, most coordinated clothing he owns and managing to make him look halfway fashionable. “What are you doing here? I thought you hated parties like this?”

“I do.” Wallace’s mouth is dry. “I - I heard you were going to be here.” Treavor laughs outright at that, even if he drowns it in a sip of his drink in the next moment.

“How awfully sweet of you. Dear me, Wallace, anyone would think you liked me or something.” The words are glib, fractured with deprecating laughter. They’re standing so close now. Practically chest to chest. Wallace can smell something tart and sweet on Treavor’s breath.

“I do,” he says, earnestly, putting a hand in the small of Treavor’s back.

“You do what?”

“Like you. I do. You’re great.”

Treavor smiles properly at that and it seems to light him up from the inside, stealing the breath right out of Wallace. Maybe it’s the drink. Maybe it’s because Treavor is watching him with an unguarded gaze, leaning into his touch, warm and fitting neatly against him like a puzzle piece. Maybe Wallace has been wrestling with this unspoken sentiment for far longer than he would like to admit. He bites the bullet.

“Well actually,” he begins, voice soft with hesitancy and he rejoices at how Treavor leans in even closer to hear him. Close enough to kiss if they chose. “It’s more than that.”

“More?”

The bass mounts and drops, speeding towards the end of the song, drowning out Wallace’s next words.

“I think - I love you.” His voice gives out a little, the weight of the words tripping up his damnable clumsy tongue.

“What?” Treavor doesn’t pull away exactly; he doesn’t move from the circle of Wallace’s arm. Instead, he leans back a little like he’s just now trying to take in the whole scope of Wallace’s being. His eyes are wide and confused.

_ Does he not understand or did he just not hear me? Why is this music so loud? _ Wallace panics a little.

“I love you!”

As before, the music has seemingly fallen away again, leaving them both cushioned in a bubble of silence and serenity. No. No wait, the music has actually stopped and Wallace thinks for a moment that it’s taken his heartbeat with it. 

_ Perhaps nobody heard - _

Everyone in the immediate vicinity is staring at them over their drinks, some amused, some horrified with secondhand embarrassment, but Wallace can’t tell if they’re hurting for him or for Treavor. Farley and Teague look like they’ve just witnessed their varsity rugby team steal a mind-blowingly unexpected victory from the domineering opposition. Over by the stereo, Lydia is watching him, Zenaida’s silenced mp3 player in hand, a look of amusement warring with sympathy on her face. Wallace wants to die a little bit. A lot, actually.

Treavor’s hand seizes his, a little clammy. Wallace’s fingers automatically curl around it, squeezing gently. Treavor’s hands are always cold. He cannot decipher the expression on Treavor’s face, and even if he could he wouldn’t be able to find the words to describe it. White noise has replaced any coherent thought in his brain. Mercifully, someone starts up the music again, and everyone ignores them again, the incident forgotten.

“I need another smoke.”

“Treavor -” Wallace tries, but Treavor just shakes his head and laces their fingers together, nails biting into Wallace’s skin. He pulls Wallace through the crowd, not speaking, until they make it to the back entrance through the kitchen. There’s a small deck out there and a staircase that stretches from the small backyard, half crowded with the tenants’ vehicles, up to the loft of the three storey house converted into apartments. 

Steering clear of the small cluster of party-goers hanging out on the staircase and passing around a fat joint of kadr, Treavor leads Wallace to the far end of the deck, stopping beside an empty coffee can filled with cigarette ends. He still hasn’t said anything as he fumbles with his pack of Baleton Thins and plucks one out to stick in his mouth. His hands are shaking as he pats himself down for his lighter. Wallace doesn’t smoke but he’s been carrying a lighter around since the day he learned Treavor did; he takes it out now, flicks it alight and holds it steady.

Treavor takes Wallace’s hand in his own and brings the lighter to his cigarette. The flickering flame carves out the sharp lines of his face like the cutting of a marble statue, darkening his eyes to covetous black gems under the fans of his lashes. Wallace barely dares to breathe. Treavor’s eyes slip shut as he draws nicotine into his lungs, one hand moving to nurse his cigarette while the other holds Wallace’s hand against his chest. Wallace can feel his heartbeat knocking against his ribcage, rabbit-quick.

Treavor breathes smoke out into the cool air. His eyes, oddly shiny in the dim light spilling from inside the house, won’t stop searching Wallace’s face. The night breeze ruffles his dark hair and all Wallace wants to do is brush it off his face and kiss his pale cheeks.

“Did you mean it?”

“I’ll say it again if you let me,” Wallace whispers, not trusting himself to speak any louder lest he betray the tears threatening to choke him silent. He fears he’s gone and fucked everything up. That this is the end. Then Treavor nods, throat bobbing with an audible swallow, and Wallace lets the words curl off his tongue again, unbearably soft.

“I love you.”

Treavor heaves a shuddering exhale, dragging Wallace closer. There’s something lean and ravenously hungry in his expression.

“Say it again,” he demands, mouth scant centimeters from Wallace’s, hand twisted in his shirt.

“I love you.”

Treavor kisses him. His cheeks are damp and Wallace’s chest aches. He encircles Treavor in his arms and peppers the words against Treavor’s lips, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose.

“I love you. I love you.”

He doesn’t realise he isn’t whispering anymore until the people behind them raise their voices in a chorus of raucous, approving cheers. Treavor pulls back and stubs out his cigarette ferociously, eyes burning.

“Your place. Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kadr is the creation of WASTEDInk. It's basically Dishonored's equivalent of pot with slightly hallucinogenic properties.


	11. Letters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "love letters"

The boat rocks, tossing on a sea of pitch capped in foaming white. The wind whistles an eerie song as the vessel plunges headlong into its salt-laden breath, but it makes no bearing on their speed. The churn of propellers under water and the hiss of whale oil hastens its return to Dunwall. Treavor Pendleton stands on the deck of the ship, legs firmly apart and swaying to adjust his balance. With a hand on the gunrail for extra support, he watches the horizon and sees where the light of the moon frosts the distant sea silver under the steely vault of the sky. The moon is swallowed by the clouds soon enough, and Treavor lights a cigarette in the dark. Smoke and visible breath both uncoil into the air and are snatched by the wind.

“Fuckin’ colder than a witch’s cunt out ‘ere,” grumbles a voice behind him, and a rough-edged deckhand steps up beside him. “If ye’ll pardon m’language, sir.” Treavor purses his lips and tucks his elbows against his sides, folding his arms. 

“I’ll tell ye for naught, m’lord, there’ll be rain t’night. Mark ye me. I’ll be ‘appy for an ‘ot meal an’ drink an’ warm bed when we make landin’.”

Treavor fishes a few coins from the pocket of his warm, woolen coat, fingers a little clumsy in his gloves, and pushes them into the sailor’s hand.

“Here man, get you gone. Leave me to smoke in peace.”

The sailor’s eyebrows climb to his hairline, but with the price of a softer bed, and maybe a soft girl to warm it too, now clinking in his palm, he can hardly take offence at the cool dismissal. He doffs his cap.

“Much obliged, sir.” 

Left to his thoughts again, Treavor’s hand goes to his breast pocket where there sits a folded letter. When first it was opened, he sat on a veranda shaded from the sweltering air of Karnaca, the only sounds the trees of the jungle beyond the Gristolian embassy chirruping and rustling with life. He’d been due to leave in just two days, and the paper has grown velvety soft between then and now with how often Treavor folds and unfolds it, reads the slowly fading words over as though his very gaze wears out the ink on the page. It is only the latest of many sent across the sea between isles. With Treavor’s return to Gristol, it will be the last.

Wallace’s penmanship leaves much to be desired. It keeps itself neat where it can, loops and curls unexpectedly in imitation of the elegant swooping calligraphy perfected by his betters, but it is, first and foremost, the scrawl of a man with a hundred other things on his mind. Treavor knows no man he trusts more to keep a Lord’s estate running smoothly in his absence; in any case, Wallace’s writing is a sweeter sight to him than any other he might cut free from an envelope, filled with words of home.

_ It is a shame you have missed the onset of spring here, milord _ \- and where Wallace has written milord, Treavor thinks he might spy the words  _ my love _ instead -  _ the lilac trees have bloomed spectacularly across the grounds. Bartemeus tells me that he has never seen them so vibrant. Ivy has told me that Susan, a kitchen girl at Boyle Manor, told her that the Ladies Boyle are positively envious of them. Might I suggest on your return that we send them a few blooms?  _

Treavor is delighted with Wallace’s subtlety, smiling to himself. He thinks of how in his own letters he spent pages describing the wild vines growing up the stonework in Karnaca, wildfire blooms of scarlet and gold spilling heady aromas into the streets, sickly sweet and pungent; the rooftop gardens vivid against the shimmering, whitewashed roofs, visible from the balconies of houses higher in the hills; the roaring wet jungles draping the mountains like viridian skirts above the city.  He remembers telling Wallace about servants venturing out in the mornings to collect for breakfast fat, oblongular fruits the size of a man’s fist, bursting with such sweet, tangy juice that, when swallowed, made his throat and lips itch. 

Up before dawn most mornings, he would sit on the embassy veranda and smoke, watching these servants wend their way to the marketplaces long before midday, when the streets would grow chaotic and crowded, when the broiling sun would scorch their peeling necks and the wet air would swim in their lungs. They would return laden with packages, filled with all manner of things to be roasted or fried or chilled for the meals later in the day. Treavor knows that their manner of dress, far more relaxed, more revealing, than the uniforms of servants in Gristol, would scandalize Wallace and he chuckles to think of it.

_ The new maid is settling in well. We call her Nettie. Mrs Paxton says she is a good girl. Quiet and a quick learner and constantly industrious. You will want a brief interview with her yourself, I am sure, even if I cannot understand your insistence to know each of the faces working for you. Even the scullery maid. I can imagine the looks on the faces of your father and brothers, but then, I need only imagine. The estate is yours and long may that remain the case. I shall arrange for your meeting Miss Nettie once you return.  _

Treavor looks forward to it. First impressions are everything. The plague was a monstrous event, devastating the Empire’s seat of power, but now that it is over, Treavor is the first to look for silver linings. With the majority of the estate’s previous staff either dead or fled, there are none to remember him as the pale, shrinking youngest brother of powerful tyrants. Now, he fills the house with those who will see him only as their rightful Lord and Master. He makes sure to meet them personally, to establish himself as one who is lofty and important, but not unkind. 

_ It is too quiet without you, milord, and without your guests to entertain. The house is cleaned from top to bottom and the staff are idle for wont of work in your service. As for myself, it will do my heart no small measure of good to hear when you will return to us. Four months is such a long time to be away from you. _

The deck scurries with life and the shouts of sailors resound around the ship. A narrow strip of light glitters on the horizon. Treavor flicks his spent cigarette into the roiling sea and mutters an oath he’s heard the sailors incant, a superstitious plea for the winds and waters to guide their ship on swiftly. He is impatient to be back in Dunwall. 

_ Come home soon. Come home safe. _


	12. Homecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "a warm reunion after a separation"

They await the Empress’ pleasure, the sparse retinue of ambassadors and their servants returned from Serkonos, gathered in the cramped, steamy gatehouse just beyond the great waterlock. Treavor pulls a small flask from an inside pocket of his coat, swallowing what small measure is necessary to send warmth padding around his ribcage like a cat curling up to sleep. The footman he brought along to serve as his valet, Leedle - previously known as Jeremiah, or Jerry, understairs - notices but says nothing even as he reaches into his coat to discreetly fetch a lighter for the cigarette his master has just pulled from its silver case. Treavor privately thinks that Leedle will go far.  A messenger has been sent up to the Tower to announce their arrival, though he hardly sees what they have to report that could not possibly wait until morning but Captain Curnow had insisted.

“Better to have you all here and now so her Majesty can hear your report as soon as possible, rather than have to herd you all back like geese once you’ve returned to your homes.”

“It’s the middle of the night, man,” grumbles Lord Brisby - younger brother and subsequent heir to the long-vanished Timothy and a much more savoury character, though often brusque - and Treavor agrees with him but makes it known only with a choice raise of his left eyebrow. Brisby’s valet eyes Curnow coldly, but Curnow just smiles placidly and ignores them, folding his hands together behind his back. If Treavor didn’t know Curnow to be a singularly dutiful, humorless man and utterly artless -  _ it would explain why he gets along so well with Farley _ , Treavor thinks - he might think the Captain was needlessly making them wait for his own amusement. That said, there’s a suspicious twinkle in his dark eyes -

The messenger, one of the apprentices for the waterlock engineers, returns just as Treavor snuffs out his spent cigarette and flicks it neatly into the waterlock. She looks marginally more pale under the dark smears of grease on her cheeks than when she left. Receiving directives from Corvo Attano would do that.

“Lor’ Protector says she -  _ her Majesty _ \- ain’t to be disturbed tonight,” she mutters to Curnow. “Had it from his own mouth an’ all when I was talking to one of the guards, sir.” Lord Brisby groans, irritated, and Treavor shoots him a disapproving sideways glance.  _ How vulgar. _ Why Manfred was chosen for their diplomatic visit was entirely beyond him. Treavor  _ had _ recommended better companions to the Empress before their departure, after all. Curnow raises his hands in a gesture of peace-making.

“Alright, gentlemen. I’m sure you’re tired. Go home. Rest. Return to the Tower tomorrow to report. I’ll have Henley and Briarwood see you to the railcars.” He nods to two guards standing by. “We’ll have you home in no time.” 

“And our luggage?” Brisby asks, shortly.

“Did you not bring it with you?” Brisby all but purples while Curnow shrugs. “I expect it is still on the ship that brought you back to Gristol. Now, were you not in a hurry to get home? I’d send for your trunks tomorrow, chaps, if I were you. They’re not going anywhere.”

Brisby is struck dumb with indignation. Treavor clicks his tongue in lieu of a sigh, exhausted. 

“Would you, then, be so kind as to send a message ahead of us both,” he says before Curnow can leave. “Surely  _ that _ much can be done. Give our respective staff a little warning before we show up out of the blue. The gatehousemen at least, Captain.”

His manners do him credit. Curnow agrees.

“The nerve of the man,” growls Brisby, devolving into a venomous tirade under his breath as they take their leave and follow the guards, who lead them beyond the concentric walls of the tower - through gates empty of Sokolov’s wicked, crackling light for the time being - “I can’t imagine why the Empress keeps him in her employ. Do you suppose he gives her such cheek as well?”

“Presumably she is above such mockery. Unlike some.” Brisby doesn’t quite catch the insult but Leedle apparently does, if his brief flutter of a smirk is anything to go by. “Oh, enough Manfred,” Treavor drawls when Brisby looks to continue complaining, wincing when he reminds himself of Custis. He clears his throat. “The less time we spend grousing, the sooner we can go home. Isn’t your pretty wife waiting for you?”

“And you, Treavor? Will you go straight home? I should think you’ll be going to visit that elusive mistress of yours, first. It’s beyond me why you don’t just bring her into your house. It’s not as though you’re married and you have to hide her.” The sly tilt of Brisby’s mouth indicates just how real he thinks Pendleton’s paramour is. So far, none of the aristocracy has been successful in learning their identity. Treavor likes it that way.

“It’s just not done, Manfred,” Treavor sniffs impetuously and Brisby’s smirk grows wider. Treavor merely adjusts his coat and strides neatly past him and climbs with far more grace than his tired limbs should possess into the railcar that has just arrived and been opened by Leedle, having moved faster and won out against Brisby’s valet. Thunder rumbles overhead and Brisby’s smirk slides off his face like water down a drain as rain begins to fall. Treavor smiles benignly at him. 

“Goodnight, Lord Brisby. I’ll see you here bright and early tomorrow, yes? I’ll give my mistress your regards.” He doesn’t wait for a response before he gestures for the Leedle to join him in carriage and shut the door. 

_ My “mistress” already lives in my house, Manfred. _

They sit down just as the sky opens and empties a deluge into the streets. It clatters against the roof of his railcar like handfuls of pebbles dropped into an ornamental pond, but the coming morning will be all the cleaner for the rain. Brisby is cursing outside, already soaked to the bone, as he and his valet scurry for cover. Treavor grins and pulls back from the window, letting the little curtain fall across the droplet-spangled glass, enveloping him in velvet-cushioned comfort lit only by a dim whale-oil lamp. No sooner than he has done so, the car judders and begins to slide forwards on its tracks. 

“Not long now, Leedle,” he says, the joviality of his tone softened with longing. Leedle nods in agreement, legs neatly crossed at the ankles and hands poised in his lap. Not for the first time, Treavor notices he is quite the striking lad, besides being more than competent, and he marvels once more at Wallace’s deliberated and careful choice. The household truly would fall apart without him, Treavor ponders regretfully.

Pendleton Hall is only twenty minutes away by railcar to a part of the district where the richest estates stand apart from their brethren, their grounds more akin to public parks for their size. By the glow of the street lamps lining the avenue, the grand house will look all the more welcoming in the cool, damp night. The lilac trees will no longer be in bloom, but with the rain the gardens will be brilliantly verdant all the same. In the grey-blue dawn tomorrow, the lawns will gleam, resplendent with the rich smell of petrichor and the sound of birds’ love calls, below Treavor’s bedroom window. He wonders if they’ll wake to see the sunrise.

The rhythmic clack of wheels and the gently swaying motion of the carriage proper is soothing. It has been another long day of travel, thankfully the last of several - Treavor does not remember fondly his hanging over the side of the ship with Leedle and the two of them retching as they first left Karnaca; nor the slinking shadow of the twenty-foot long jungle cat with a skin like dappled silk stalking the ship for miles along the coast until finally giving up outside Saggunto; nor the ripe riverway stench of Bastillian’s lacework canals as they pulled into port one last time before heading around the isle’s northern peninsula - and Treavor finds himself lulled into a light doze.

_ Four months is such a long time to be away from you. Come home soon. Come home safe. _

He awakens to a quiet, insistent word from Leedle, and a hand on his knee. He straightens instantly, hand going to his breast pocket, while the other pulls back the curtain. Their railcar sits, steaming gently, before Pendleton Hall. Most of the windows yawn into darkness, but from the soft light glowing within his chambers, he can tell a fire has already been lit to ward off the damp and the chill. A squat figure wearing a rain-proof coat and hood hurries out of the gatehouse with a lantern and two umbrellas, one under his arm and the other open above him. Treavor casually conceals an amused smile behind his hand, remembering.

_ “Two men I’m caught between, milord.” _

_ “How scandalous, Wallace. Not so loud. The maids will hear you.” _

_ “For the position of gatehouseman, sir.” _

_ “I’ll defer to you Wallace. I always do - oh very well. Let’s hear it then.” _

_ “They are alike in good character. Their references are all in order. Both with well-mannered dispositions -” _

_ “Their names?” _

_ “Woden Chatwick and Arnold Gately.” _

_ “You don’t say! How droll. Well Wallace, it had better be Gately for the gatehouse then.” _

“Heard you was comin’ Jerry - oh, I mean Mr Leedle,” says Gately with goodnatured enthusiasm as he opens the door and hands up the folded umbrella to Leedle, keeping his own held above the doorway. “Sent word to us, they did. Welcome home, Milord!” He somehow manages a peculiar little bow without splattering them with rain. “We’re happy to have you back.”

Treavor steps down from the carriage.

“How splendid to hear, Gately. Too often one hears tales of the mice at play once the cat’s away.”

“Oh no, sir. Nothing of the sort. Even if we all were a scurrilous bunch, Mr. Higgins would never abide it.” 

“No, I expect he wouldn’t.” 

The railcar hisses and squeals gently as it departs behind them, but Treavor is already striding ahead, Leedle neatly in step behind him and holding aloft an umbrella. Gately bows his final farewell once they’re beyond the gatehouse and crossing the courtyard, which glitters in the lantern light like diamonds scattered underfoot. Treavor quickens his gait and nearly bounces up the steps to the front door, but halts at the last moment in the stone alcove to smooth back his hair.

Leedle forgets himself and stares oddly. Treavor adjusts his own cravat for good measure and raises an eyebrow at him, waiting. Leedle’s expression wanes from peculiar to wrong-footed.

“Sir?” 

“Am I to be left to knock at the front door of my own house?” 

“I -?  _ Sir _ ?” Leedle looks like he’s failed a vital test and is awaiting a strap from the schoolmaster. Treavor rolls his eyes skyward. The boy was a footman before his rather abrupt promotion and it seems he’s not quite done learning all the duties befitting a valet. Convention would dictate Treavor wordlessly and expectantly remain standing where he is, rain be damned, until Leedle figured things out but Treavor is thrumming with impatience. He opens the door himself.

“Welcome home, milord.” Mrs Paxton greets him with a dignified curtsy, a sensible housecoat over her nightgown and her flaxen hair pulled into a much less severe bun than Treavor is used to seeing. She does not ask but her eyes follow Leedle entering the house and fiddling with the wet umbrella. The strands of silver in her hair, the crows feet at her eyes, and the practical folding of her hands are a welcome sight to a weary traveller but Treavor feels himself deflate somewhat. 

“Mrs Paxton. Good evening - good morning? It’s about that hour now.” He quashes the urge to press her hand like a favoured grandmother, eyes flickering about the entrance hall. She will think he is surveying for anything amiss, as one must when returning home after a long time absent.

“Yes. Are you hungry, milord? I can have something brought up -”

“Thank you, no. I‘m off to bed, straight away. I’d sooner see you do the same, Mrs. Paxton. We can’t have you up all hours of the night now.”

“It’s no trouble, milord,” she says simply and stays where she is because Treavor hasn’t truly dismissed her yet.

“Remind me to ask Higgins in the morning to arrange for my luggage to be brought to the house tomorrow,” he tells her. “We had to leave it behind on the ship as they wanted us at the Tower.” He doesn’t tell her he’ll need to return there in the morning anyway. “Dratted inconvenience but I suppose one must grin and bear it.” Footsteps approach.

“Of course, milord.”

“Your coat, milord -” says Leedle a little eagerly, flitting to his side, having divested of the umbrella. A throat clears.

“Thank you, kindly, Jeremiah, but that will do.”

Treavor straightens his shoulders in a motion like a cat stretching. The hands that brush against his shoulders as they remove his coat are careful and warm, much larger than Leedle’s. The presence at his back is taller, broader. Control and a reserved sort of elegance thrums through his every movement. 

“Is it not  _ Mr Leedle _ , Mr Higgins -”

“I trust you have no complaints about our  _ Jeremiah _ , milord?” Wallace interjects smoothly. His voice is rich and voluminous, authoritative. “He has done his job well?”

“He’s been perfectly satisfactory, Higgins.” Treavor confirms before offering a smile to the straight-backed young man. “Your appointment was, regretfully, temporary, Leedle - ah - Jeremiah. Nothing to be done about it, I’m afraid. I could hardly take Higgins as my valet when he’s so needed here. But now that I’m back, we’ll return to how things were before I departed.”

Jeremiah bows stiffly, his smile creasing his eyes into slits.

“I only hope I might yet be of more use to you in the future, milord. I would hate to think that Mr Higgins was overworking himself, taking on the duties of both butler and valet - “

Treavor’s smile thins.

“Well. We’ll discuss this another time, Jeremiah. You and I have had a long journey and I should think it’s time for bed. Won’t you go too, Mrs Paxton?”

Finally, the two of them are left alone in the entrance hall.

“I shall see he answers for his impertinence -”

“Oh no matter, Wallace. I’m quite unconcerned. Shall we?”

Treavor’s rooms are only up one flight of stairs and a journey of two hallways but it’s altogether too much distance. The house has recently had electricity installed but Treavor does not like the low hum of it this late at night, no matter the illumination it provides. The candle Wallace carries is more than enough, a bright little guide in his steady hand.

“You were delayed.”

“It’s a chill evening milord. And wet. I thought you might appreciate a fire in the grate.”

Generations of flinty-eyed Pendletons peer down at them, their portraits sliding into view as he and Wallace walk along, some as though knowingly. A few curl their lip in disgust.

“Lord Brisby sends his regards by the way.” Treavor glances over slyly and smirks at Wallace’s immediate confusion. “To my  _ mistress _ .”

“Ah. Lord  _ Manfred _ Brisby.”

“What, did you perhaps fear for a moment his older brother had come back from the dead to lure me further into drinking and gambling and sexual deviancy?”

“Hmph. You do all that well enough by yourself, milord, without encouragement. Still, by your leave, I will salt the windows and doors at once.” Treavor’s mouth parts with scandalised delight at such cheek as they step into the bedroom and Wallace sets the candle down. Besides the fire, it is the only source of light, golden and flickering. Wallace’s face is half bathed in shadow as he turns to lock the door behind them.

“You most certainly do not have my leave. I resent your slight on my character, Wallace. According to you, I am a drinker, a gambler, and a sexual deviant, then? I’ll have you know, I drink and gamble in the most scrupulous of moderation.”

“And the - ?” Wallace clears his throat but Treavor turns away from him deliberately, skin almost itching with the heat of the gaze on his back, to remove his jacket and waistcoat himself. Wallace takes them from him and dutifully hangs them up. The question hangs between them unanswered until Wallace undoes Treavor’s cufflinks and his fingers push inside Treavor’s sleeves to stroke his wrists.

“Alive or dead, Brisby has nothing to teach me in the way of sexual deviancy,” Treavor whispers conspiratorially. Wallace’s eyes are always dark, like black tea without milk, wet earth after rain, but even now they drink in the sight of him and the pupils grow fatter. Treavor could squirm under that gaze. “Castigate me with the Sixth all you will, there’s nothing to be done about it, I’m afraid.”  

“Nothing at all,” Wallace agrees softly, bending his head to kiss the side of Treavor’s neck. The bed sits invitingly close but dawn is some time off yet. Treavor wraps his arms around Wallace’s waist, under his jacket, and stands close. 

“You’re home, love.”

“Mmm.” If Treavor nudges his nose against Wallace’s collarbone and takes a moment to breathe steadily, certainly there is no-one to object to it. Wallace’s arms encircle him and pull him closer and there’s nothing for Treavor to do but sink into the embrace. “You know,” Treavor says, “if you were really my mistress proper, you’d have been waiting for me between these sheets already, clad only in a few delicate wisps of silk and lace.”

Wallace makes a face that has Treavor biting down on a very undignified giggle.

“Did you bring me back said wisps of silk and lace from Serkonos, my lord? I’ve heard that’s what one wears in that debauched corner of the Empire.”

Treavor runs a hand down Wallace’s broad chest, undoing buttons as he goes and grinning into the kiss he presses against the corner of Wallace’s mouth. The mental image of his big, bulky manservant in clothes better suited to a girl from the Cat is most amusing but not without a certain appeal.

“Would you wear them for me if I did?” Wallace clears his throat, averting his eyes. From his cheeks to his chest he has flushed a fetching crimson.

“With ample persuasion, perhaps. Yes,” he admits finally, a little breathlessly, and Treavor is more than delighted. He pushes Wallace to the bed and down against the mattress, bestows his pleasure in kisses.

“Ample persuasion? I could be equal to that task, I think. But alas, darling, I did not, in fact, bring you back such garments.”

“A dratted shame. My heart could break for disappointment,” Wallace says dryly. Treavor nips his ear, curls his next words around the shell of it.

“I did, however, bring you back a crate of oranges. They should be arriving tomorrow with the rest of my things.” He pulls back in triumph to watch Wallace’s face, then scowls briefly. “I was intending to bring you back some mangoes, but I was told they wouldn’t last the trip.”

“I like oranges.”

“I know you do. I thought they’d make a suitable substitute. Still, I was so hoping to have you try a mango. They were rather too sweet for my taste but you would have liked them. A shame.The flesh and skins are dreadfully delicate, you see - ”

“A whole crate of oranges?”

Treavor doesn’t like being interrupted but Wallace is staring up at him, eyes wide with astonished wonder and tender, slowly-dawning joy. He looks as though he’s been told Fugue Feast has come early this year, like a young lad again given a few shiny coins to spend on sweets for his birthday. To look at him, you’d think he’d been given the world. Treavor’s breath catches in his throat, hands clenching in the sheets. It’s too easy, _ too easy _ . Waverly would have  _ never _ -

“Have I made your week?”

Wallace grins, open and honest.

“You made my entire month with news of your return. The oranges are just a pleasant surprise.”

“You’re far too easy to please, darling.”

“Only grateful for what I am given.”

Treavor, trembling, reaches for the flask he knows isn’t on his person before he can stop himself, hand uselessly curling into a loose fist against his ribs where it should be, and the gesture is too purposeful to pass off as anything else. Wallace pushes himself upright and Treavor settles comfortably again, straddling his lap. His throat suddenly hurts. Tight and sore like he’s been howling in grief for hours.

“You’ll have to - um - you’ll have to share a few, I think. With the others below stairs. There are enough, I think, for you to have several left over afterwards. We can’t have them thinking that - Well. We can’t have them thinking.”

“Of course, my lo -”

Treavor kisses him, shortly and a little more tersely than he intended. Wallace’s mouth yields readily beneath his own, not an inch of retreat from the gentle click of teeth against teeth, even as his hand pushes up under Treavor’s shirt, trailing gooseflesh in its wake. Was the fire not built up enough? Wallace would never be so careless, but that would account for Treavor’s shaking. Wallace is always warm. Treavor reaches and grasps Wallace’s wrist, keeping Wallace’s hand in place where it is, broad and solid against Treavor’s narrow back. He sighs a shuddery sound as  Wallace’s other hand smooths over Treavor’s cheek, fingertips brushing the side of his neck, intimate with his pulse. 

Wallace draws away slowly and Treavor chases his mouth, eyes closed, before remembering himself abruptly and pulling back. He can’t make himself draw together the words he needs.

“I missed you,” Wallace says softly, frank and honest.

Treavor turns his head and grazes his lips against the palm against his heated cheek. 

“Wallace -”

Swallowing hurts and his eyes sting. Something in his chest yearns for release but moving his hands in order to pull it open would require removing his hands from Wallace. It’s antithetical to what Treavor wants. Impractical, even. Wallace is still wearing his waistcoat and shirt and undershirt and however many other blasted layers Treavor wants to do away with. Perhaps forever.

“Do you truly think the house would suffer ever so terribly if you were not here to run it, when next I left Gristol?” Treavor asks, half inside Wallace’s clothing and bodily pressed to him. Finally.  _ Finally _ . “Is not Mrs Paxton capable?”

“More than capable,” Wallace asserts fiercely.

“I shouldn’t like to do without - I mean, that is to say - Wallace, I -” 

“I know.”


	13. A Debt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Treavor demands for Havelock's gun to do the job himself"

"Give me the gun," Treavor grits out through his teeth in a harsh, guttural whisper. The day is cool but the pale sun beats down on the back of his neck, making him sweat. An insect whines at his ear but he impatiently brushes it away. He feels vaguely ill and hopes he's not coming down with something terrible.

Farley stares at him suspiciously out of eyes like smooth, cold pebbles. There are dark bags under them. None of their trio slept well, Treavor hazards to guess. Too many hours last night spent out of their beds and plotting for the day to come, what with Corvo eliminated from the equation. Treavor's head throbs in tandem with the vein in Farley's neck.

Teague doesn't wear his exhaustion on his face, he never does, but his mouth has failed to grin glibly even once this morning. He's gone for Callista and the girl.

"Give it to me," Treavor insists, and it's almost a dull whine. A plea. "It should be me - I should - it should be me that does for him."

Wallace stands below them, not quite in the open, exchanging quiet words with the woman. Unaware. Blissfully unaware, Treavor hopes.

"What do you owe him?" Farley swipes sweat and hair out of his eyes, teeth bared in a barely-contained frenzy.

_A long and quiet life. A hundred, hundred days in floury kitchens cleaning cuts and scrapes and buttery biscuits bestowed. A retiree's cottage somewhere North. A shoulder. A hand. A smile and whispered word of grace. Everything._

"An end. A fitting end."

_A quick one._


	14. Shirt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Modern College AU
> 
> Prompt: "Treavor in some article(s) of Wallace's clothing"

“I swear I burned that shirt,” Wallace grumbles when he catches sight of Treavor emerging from the bathroom in a cloud of scented steam, dressed up for a night out and his hair neatly combed. It’s the hamhock’s birthday and he’s dragging Treavor and the stripper priest out for a few hours on a pub crawl - interspersed with crashing a beach party and loading up on fish and chips - before ending up at some weird new nightclub in the Old Port District. _Apparently, it has a shark tank. An actual shark tank, Wallace._

“Nope. I found it buried at the bottom of your closet.” Treavor fiddles with the checkered scarf around his neck until it hangs the way he wants. A few pendants on silver chains clink together against his sternum as he moves.

“Why were you - ? Never mind. Who in their right mind would wear that out and about? It’s bright pink and says ‘ _Sex Machine_ ’ in neon yellow letters. It’s a monstrosity.”

“I think the better question is, why do you own it if you don’t wear it?”

“Lydia bought it for me. Her idea of a joke present.”

“I love that woman,” Treavor says matter of factly as he dabs lip balm on his lower lip with his finger.

“She’s a nightmare.”

“She’s _your_ roommate.”

Wallace grumbles as Treavor wanders over and half straddles him on the sofa and kisses him, tasting faintly of mint. He almost regrets telling Treavor he’d rather not subject himself to a night of too-loud music and intoxicated slurring and stumbling. Almost. It really isn’t his scene, and he can only put up with Farley and Teague while they’re all sober and on their best behaviour, but Treavor does look very very good in those tight jeans.

“How do I look?”

“Gorgeous. Despite that shirt. It’s hideous. Take it off, please.”

“If I take it off, there’s no guarantee the pants won’t come with it.”

“I doubt it. Those look spray-painted on.” Treavor grins, pleased. They’ve been dating for months and has taken as long as that for Wallace to learn that Treavor likes being touched, and invites it; Wallace doesn’t have to hesitate, doesn’t have to gear himself up to ask. He pushes his shirt up from Treavor’s thighs, where the hem sits halfway down them, until he can see skin. He’s warm under Wallace’s touch, delicate with ribs like a ladder welcoming Wallace’s hands to climb higher. The dip of Treavor’s collarbone smells like soap and lotion and cologne when Wallace nudges his nose against it.

“I have to gooo,” Treavor protests, making no effort to move away or push Wallace’s mouth from his neck. Nevertheless, Wallace sits back against the couch and exhales wistfully, hands dropping from Treavor’s waist.

“Why are you wearing it anyway? It’s too big for you. It’s obviously not your shirt.”

“Exactly. It belongs to my tall and muscled, ruggedly handsome and exhausted boyfriend - who couldn’t be out clubbing with me because he’s a square...rather, a responsible and mature adult who pays bills - but he _has_ lent me his shirt. Which is great, because I lost mine in the race to get our clothes off for the three rounds of ridiculously athletic sex  -”

“We didn’t -”

“Nobody needs to know that - for the athletic and truly satisfying sex we had just before I came out for the night -”

“You could stay home instead and we could make good on that. Live up to what this abhorrent t-shirt says.”

“I’m a weak man. Don’t tempt me -”

Wallace wants to, even leans in for another kiss that Treavor briefly reciprocates, but then Treavor’s phone buzzes in his back pocket and he climbs off Wallace without looking at it, heading for the door.

“That’ll be them. You’re still picking me up?”

“Of course.”

Treavor snatches his keys and wallet from the side table and checks himself over in the mirror once again. His hair goes from neat to artfully fussed with and back again. It’s endearing to watch.

“It’s like I’m taking you with me,” Treavor confesses when he’s halfway out of the apartment, leaning against the doorframe in Wallace’s t-shirt under a distressed denim jacket and gazing back at Wallace, whose heart jumps gleefully. “Sod off, random number three asking for my number. I’m taken.”

“Yeah.”

Treavor gives him a smile, one of the little crooked ones. Soft and honest. He winks.

“I’ll call you...and then when you get me home, we’ll see about taking this shirt off.”

“You minx. Have fun.”

Treavor blows him a kiss and scarpers, leaving Wallace to ponder on the pros and cons of keeping Treavor in the shirt should they fall into bed together. It leaves his trousers more than a little tight and he sighs, thinking of the hours between now and then. He wonders if it would be beating Treavor at his own game, or simply playing into it, if he were to send him a few dirty pictures over the course of the night.


	15. Self-Loathing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Treavor's bitterness and self loathing from Wallace's POV"

Lord Treavor comes home in a worse state than Wallace has ever seen him, and that's saying something. He’s drunk, which is nothing new, practically falling out of the railcar against Wallace, who has been waiting for him to come home since the twins retired to bed. He’s warm and sweaty enough to be running a fever, but the glassy sheen to his eyes is no indication either way. Treavor’s cravat is loose, trailing free because it’s only been haphazardly fixed in place, and there are bruises around his throat like someone has tried to choke him -  _ has _ choked him. There are other bruises too. Teeth marks. Wallace feels sick. Nevertheless, he resigns himself to a sleepless night watching over Treavor.

The twins don’t wake as Wallace hauls Treavor up to bed, they never do. Whether or not they sleep restfully is none of Wallace’s concern, so long as they don’t poke their heads around the door like hunting dogs scenting blood. It isn’t difficult keeping Treavor quiet. He isn’t a noisy or rowdy or violent drunk. If anything, he retreats further within himself, coiling in tighter and tighter until no amount of coaxing will draw him out again until he’s ready. So tightly wound, there is bound to be an explosion outward at some point but that will come later. It won’t be loud and it will only be words anyway.

Treavor doesn’t bring home caught in his clothes the scent of sweet perfumes or heady jasmine-scented massage oils worn and used at the Golden Cat. He reeks of sweat and cigar smoke and sharp cologne; he’s searched abroad elsewhere for these crueler acts mapped out on his skin. Wallace eases him out of the outer layers of his clothes, more often than not propping Treavor up when he sways silently. Under his shirt, it looks like he’s been mauled and the thought puts Wallace in mind of gilded wolf’s head buttons, an enmity that has strayed into the bedroom more than once and spat Treavor back out bruised and bleeding and limping.

Treavor winces when Wallace guides him to sit on the bed but slumps sideways against the pillow without protest and curls into what might have been a ball if there were more to Treavor than skin and bones.

“You deserve better than this,” Wallace tells him. He means it. Believes it with every painful breath he’s drawn since Treavor started coming home looking like the least favourite toy of a mean and spoiled child. Treavor is silent for a moment before a harsh croak of a laugh cracks out of his throat like a bone splintered for its marrow.

“Do I?”


	16. Practice: Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "a younger Treavor practicing kissing with Wallace"

The whole time he follows the young lord - swallowing his tongue to keep quiet, his first questions staved off by harsh hisses of breath from the boy - out into the greenhouses, Wallace has no idea what to expect. Treavor had simply sought him out after luncheon; Wallace was in the library, dusting.   
  
"I have something to ask you. Not here!" Treavor's eyes dart like frightened mice, seeking spectres wearing twin grins in the darkened corners of the house. Wallace's heart trips in his chest, but he clambers down the ladder and hastily puts the feather duster where it might not be noticed as suddenly abandoned.   
  
It's a muggy day outside. Overcast. Nasty. The very air sweats and if Wallace is feeling it then Treavor, with his delicate skin and constitution, must be suffering. Nevertheless, Treavor seems too busy gritting his teeth to complain as he might normally do.    
  
"Out, Zachariah," Treavor orders impetuously, hardly sparing a glance at the bewildered old man. Wallace doesn't know what sort of expression to give the gardener as Zachariah retreats from his carefully tended blooms and gives an awkward bow before leaving them both alone. Wallace swallows, mouth sticking with the mulch-rich air. He likes the greenhouses and the staid, cheery gardener who tends them. Wallace has been welcome here more than once and he thinks he might be a little cross with Treavor for being so rude, perhaps enough to even attempt a small, scolding remark.   
  
"He does his work well, does Zachariah. Asking him nicely might not go amiss."    
  
Treavor has the grace to look sheepish but only for a moment. He's buzzing like a bee in his waistcoat, outer coat discarded what with the oppressive wet warmth outside - like the inside of a mouth - but it’s not the frenetic movement of industrious occupation. There's something lodged in him and Treavor's trying to shake it loose. He's going to, shortly. Wallace won't have to wait long to find out why he's been brought out here.   
  
Treavor's words are oddly terse and shaky. He gets to the point quickly.   
  
"Fugue Feast."   
  
"Milord?"   
  
"Presumably you've partaken. You've - well, you know how it is. Liquor and tensions running high - the Overseers held at bay - the  _ debauchery _ , Wallace."   
  
_ Does he know? _ Wallace feels sweat trickle down the length of his spine, and he has to set his teeth against the urge to claw the sudden itch with his blunt nails. The arc-and-fork pendant at his throat seems to burn cold beneath his undershirt, calling to mind the days out of the year, those nonexistent hours forgotten by the calendar, where he drank until he was at liberty to do something stupid. Stupid like forget who he was and who he worked for and that he should keep his fucking prick in his trousers, not in pretty lads with dark hair and wicked grins who beckoned from shadowy alleys in the dirtier districts. Not that he’s ever done anything further than kiss and the odd fumble outside or inside of clothes, mind you, clumsy and confused and too aroused to think clearly, before having his coin pouch stolen with what meagre amount remained in it. Every fucking time. Wallace never learns.    
  
"Is this really something we should be talking about, milord. It’s hardly appropriate -”

“Don’t be so obscene, Wallace. I’m not asking - that is, I don’t - I’m not interested in those finer particulars. I just need to know - have you ever  _ kissed _ anyone?”

“There might have been - I suppose, yes. Yes, I have.” Wallace struggles to find the words, Treavor’s impatient look prompting him on but not without some stumbling.    
  
"Well - I haven't."    
  
"What are you asking me, milord?" 

“I - I need you to teach me.” Treavor’s throat clicks audibly on a nervous swallow. “To kiss.”

Wallace almost says something unworthy -  _ isn’t that what whores are for? _ sniffs the voice of contempt in his head; it sounds like his father - but the words jangle sour in his skull and he holds them on his tongue, pushes them back into obscurity. In any case, it wouldn’t do to send the boy chasing far too early after something that cannot be bought. The brothel girls can be paid for any number of acts but not for what is truly sought. Trinkets and cheap gaud for fabulous prices but it wasn’t long before they tarnished and no amount of polish would brighten them again.

Wallace cannot abide the thought of Treavor chasing those baubles out of the house, not yet. Nor ever really, not where all and sundry might witness it. Treavor’s a clever boy when it’s not the head in his trousers doing the thinking for him. It wouldn’t be a seemly affair.

But Outsider’s Eyes. Why  _ him _ ?

“Why me?”

“You can be trusted, can’t you Wallace? You won’t...tell anybody.”   


_ Good, you foolish boy. Think on what it is you ask. Who you ask. Why it’s wrong and who might be listening and who might think it worth bringing the Overseers to knock on the door. _   
  
"And you chose," Wallace mulls over his words carefully, tastes them against his teeth before sending them forth, "a glass house? As the place we ought to do this?"    
  
Treavor reddens unevenly, blotches coming out in his cheeks and fire spreading up to his ears.    
  
"If you're going to ridicule me, Wallace, I won't stand for it. I won't," he mutters viciously, suspiciously choked, making to shove past the manservant in his way. Wallace catches his arm, surprised once again at how any limb could be so stringy.  _ You're not eating enough _ , he thinks a little hysterically, trying to ignore how his hand is more than enough to wrap around Treavor's upper arm, plenty to spare. Wallace's grip might be bruising him, gentle though it is. He releases Treavor, ready to step entirely into his path, but it's unnecessary. Treavor is still and mulishly silent, watching him without meeting his eyes.   
  
"Who would you go to if not me?" Wallace asks, dreading, and doesn’t think Treavor is going to deign to answer. Finally he mumbles:

“I thought I might - well - Timothy.”

Wallace’s stomach roils, bile rising. He stamps it down, his father’s voice drilling through his skull that it’s not his place to judge his betters, but it doesn’t stop him from placing a somewhat proprietary hand on Treavor’s chest. Over Wallace’s dead body, perhaps, would the Brisby heir put his hands on Pendleton stock. 

“Alright.”

There’s a corner of the greenhouse that’s sheltered from the outside, the glass overgrown with tangled curls of ivy, like a curtain, on the one side. The other is concealed by rows of tall tomato plants, the fat little fruits a tempting red among the leaves. Treavor plucks one and pops it into his mouth, chewing contemplatively.

“Where does one start then?”

_ Preferably with a long, chaste courtship, a Lord’s blessing for his daughter’s hand, and a respectable marriage _ , Wallace doesn’t say. 

“If you like who you’re going to kiss -”  _ or drunk enough to forget what propriety is _ , “- much of it comes naturally, milord.” 

“That’s shite advice, Wallace - oh never mind. Where do you put your hands for a start?” 

Wallace flushes to remember the places he’s put his hands on former partners and where they’ve put their hands on him and coughs to rid himself of the heat of phantom touches, long past.

“The waist is respectable -”

He doesn’t expect Treavor to step so close and do just that, looking up at him expectantly before frowning.

“If you were a lady, you’d be shorter.”

“Well I’m not a lady,” Wallace reminds him dryly, ignoring Treavor’s muttered suggestion of Wallace kneeling. “I could find you a box, milord.” 

“I’ll have to stand on tiptoe,” he complains, and doing so only just puts him level with Wallace, putting himself off balance so he has to stand even closer. He’s nineteen and done growing so he’s unlikely to ever catch up now. The thought doesn’t make Wallace sad exactly but he’d rather have seen Treavor fill out more, follow after the twins in that, and only that, regard. Treavor feels too thin when Wallace carefully puts one hand on his waist and raises the other to his face.

Treavor flinches, almost too slightly to notice, but Wallace has grown up with this boy, hardly his junior, wiping blood from his knees and quivering lip, applying ointment to ugly bruises.

_ Too used to hands on you for all the wrong reasons. _

Wallace continues to steadily brush his thumb over Treavor’s cheekbone until the young lord sighs and relaxes into it, eyelids slipping half shut, which is when Wallace leans in because he’s never been good at teaching any other way than by showing. He moves slowly, so as not to spook Treavor, but not so slowly that he has the chance to stop when he suddenly thinks that this is all wrong; he should be teaching  _ Treavor _ to lean in, to make the first move. After all, Treavor shouldn’t be expecting to kiss older men after this point, but shy, maidenly highborn girls -

But by then it’s too late. Their lips are touching and Treavor has gone still with surprise and Wallace himself is stunned at his own boldness. It doesn’t last long.

_ Not that any of the highborn girls milord knows are particularly shy or maidenly _ , Wallace thinks, somewhat hysterically,  _ so really this probably isn’t too far off the mark.  _ Then Treavor parts his lips a little too wide and his tongue darts into play, still tart with the taste of tomato. Wallace pulls back without hesitation to Treavor’s bemused scowl.

“Too forward,” Wallace instructs bluntly. 

“So what you’re saying is...not so soon then-?”

“Quite, milord. But may I add that perhaps you gentle that technique even should you find yourself - ah -enflamed with passion.” 

“I thought that was what you were  _ supposed _ to do,” Treavor retorts defensively, dropping back onto the flats of his feet. He hasn’t stepped away. He remains within Wallace’s reach which makes it easy to gently brush the edge of Treavor’s lower lip until his prickliness fades again. 

“Did young Master Brisby tell you that?” Treavor’s sullen silence is answer enough. “Begging your pardon, sir, but perhaps it might be best to disregard anything he’s ever told you as regards...this.”  _ Everything. _

“Are you truly more experienced than he is, Wallace?” Treavor sniffs, eyes suspicious. Answering that diplomatically and truthfully would be difficult.

“You came to me first, milord,” Wallace says instead, gently, and Treavor doesn’t disagree with that. 

“Go on then,” he commands as impetuously as a young man can while also pursing his lips for a kiss. Their noses bump together this time and Treavor mumbles a nervous apology before Wallace can, but keeps his lips firmly together afterwards. That isn’t right either, and Wallace is irritated with himself for botching this all so quickly.

He tries to speak against Treavor’s mouth and that doesn’t work either. Treavor drops down off the tips of his toes again with a huff.

“ _ What? _ ” 

“Just -” Wallace takes his face between two hands and uses one thumb to drag Treavor’s lip down until his mouth is open only wide enough to tantalise, to allow the escape of a sigh, and kisses him properly. Their lips fit together neatly now and it’s...well, it’s more than nice frankly. The youngest Lady Boyle once teased him for chapped lips one winter, and Treavor has relentlessly kept them soft with balm ever since.

Treavor only pulls away after a while to suck in air-starved breaths, gasping a little between words. He’s gripping Wallace’s clothes tightly, looking more than slightly dazed.

“How do you - ? Outsider’s Eyes, when am I supposed to breathe? How?”

“Through your nose -” 

“Well, what if it whistles?” 

“Why would it -? Milord, your nose hasn’t whistled while you breathe since -”

“I don’t need reminding that Morgan broke my nose  _ again _ when I was fourteen, Wallace, thank you. What if I’m sick?” 

“You shouldn’t be kissing anyone while you’re ill! Milord what are you planning -?” 

“I - oh hell, Wallace,  _ nothing! _ ” Treavor groans at the tedium, rolling his eyes, and grabs Wallace’s lapels to pull him into another kiss like Wallace has taught him, lips easily parted. They don’t bump noses despite Wallace’s surprise, but Treavor doesn’t stand on his tiptoes this time, so Wallace has to crane his neck downwards. He can’t seem to care because Treavor is learning quickly and it has been far too long since Wallace has blown off steam like this. 

His neck begins to ache all too quickly and he can’t possibly hitch Treavor up onto his tiptoes again with arms tight around him. That would be crossing a line. 

_ Like kissing his Lordship’s youngest hasn’t already crossed too many lines to count. At least you’ve kept your hands where they’re supposed to be and he’s not pressed against you like - like some -  _

Instead, while Treavor watches, curious, Wallace perches on the high edge of the pitted, earth-stained table with its load of potted tomato plants, long legs stretched out in front of him and spread a bit so Treavor can stand between them. The leaves tickle against the back of Wallace’s jacket but it comfortably puts them both at a height and Treavor’s little grin of satisfaction is more than fair recompense for that small discomfort. 

Treavor keeps his hands on Wallace’s waist like a gentleman when their lips meet again, which is good and proper and chaste in a way nothing like this entire situation has been. There’s space enough between them that Wallace can feel like this is still a clinical and carefully controlled demonstration, like when Treavor was seven and wanted to learn the way to be as good at Cat’s Cradle as Wallace was. One of his hands grips the edge of the table, hoping for painful splinters he can pick out later, each one an atonement for this brazen act of impropriety -  _ he’d have gone to Brisby otherwise! - it’s not your place to judge your betters, Wallace boy,  _ condemns the voice of his father following his protests - and the other settles around Treavor’s elbow for no other reason than it’s within reach and unlikely to cause any unfortunate...stirrings.

Treavor pulls away again suddenly, colour high in his cheeks but with enough breath to speak. He crosses his arms in irritation.

“So why does Timothy think that sticking your tongue down a girl’s throat is the right thing to do? Unless he has things confused with what you’re supposed to do with her particulars - oh fucking damn it, did I misunderstand? Have  _ I _ got things confused with a girl’s -” 

Wallace can’t listen to this.  

“Well he’s not -” he interrupts, eyes on the ivy curtain behind Treavor, “- that is to say, young Master Brisby is not altogether inaccurate. About the kissing and - ah - and the tongues.”

“So then -” Treavor’s eyes narrow, “- you do use your tongue when kissing someone?”

“You can. Sparingly. There’s, well, not an  _ art _ to it, per se, but -” 

“Do  _ you _ know how to do that properly then? Will you teach me? Show me how to do it. I can’t walk away with only half the knowledge, you lummox.”  

The insult is said with no bite and rolls off Wallace like water off duck feathers, but the mere idea of what they’ve been doing involving tongues in any capacity has Wallace reeling and it’s a good thing the table is there to hold him up. 

“Forgive me, milord, but it’s not something you should be doing until your wedding night -” Wallace stammers out, trying to ignore just how many false ‘wedding nights’ he’s had during Fugue Feasts past. Treavor just scoffs.

“Custis and Morgan might marry me off to some thrice-used widow with bad teeth tomorrow just for a laugh. I’d rather be ready for when I needs must seduce a prettier mistress. Certainly, I’ll take you with me wherever I must go but imagine us trying to get away with this in a smaller house under the nose of the Lady wife. Which it will be, knowing Custis and Morgan. The house, I mean. Small. She’ll be rich enough to avoid shaming the family name, but there won’t be enough room to swing a cat, just you watch. No no, Wallace. Time is of the essence.”

“Your brothers aren’t marrying you off tomorrow,” Wallace protests weakly. 

“They might. You know what they’re like.  _ Bastards _ .” 

Wallace stands up straight again, ready to beg for Treavor’s leave and return to the library to finish dusting, and it’s a mistake because Treavor doesn’t back away and they’re alarmingly, intimately close now. Wallace is afraid to breathe too deeply such is the likelihood they might accidentally touch. 

“Wallace,  _ please _ .” The word is small and soft and wheedling like Treavor hasn’t been since he’s wanted Wallace to help him steal sweet biscuits from the kitchens. Wallace sighs. 

“I - alright. But not today. I have - there’s work to do and I have to do it and I’m sure you also have things that require your attention.” 

Treavor checks his pocket watch and Wallace fears for a moment that he’ll say it’s halfway to dinner time or even later and they’ll both have been long missed. Thankfully not.  

“Fine. Tomorrow?” 

“Tomorrow might - we could -” 

“Not here then. Somewhere else. Wouldn’t do to make Zachariah wonder why we’re here all the time.” 

_ Good. Clever boy. _

Treavor snaps the watch shut and tucks it back into his pocket, smirks like someone wicked who’s gotten away with something he shouldn’t have and has dragged someone else into being complicit -  _ you weren’t dragged into anything. Hardly even persuaded. Accept your failings. _

But at the very least the Brisby boy won’t be putting his hands near Wallace’s young lord and Treavor saunters from the greenhouse with a spring in his step and a promise of tomorrow.


	17. Changeling: Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "witch!Treavor and totally-ignoring-the-whalebones!Wallace"

When Treavor is five, his older brothers put snakes in his crib and half smother him with a blanket. The nurse screams hours later when she finds the child snow-white and threaded blue with too-dark veins, the thin black carcasses of garden adders crushed in his pudgy little fists. He's bleeding sluggishly out of the punctures the fangs have made in him, but breath stubbornly burbles in and out of his lungs.   
  
Lady Pendleton sickens and dies only a month later. A wasting sickness. A weakness in the blood, the doctors agreed. Hers was supposed to be strong and blue, running thick with the legacy of those who built Dunwall on the bones of a greater city, long lost to time. Still, she dies and her youngest son lives.   
  
Lord Pendleton replaces her with a red-haired harridan who smells of brandy and new coin. Geraldine. She's too long in the tooth and nail and Treavor thinks she looks like a witch, especially when she laughs. He hides from her when he's still young enough to get away with it, disparaging the twins when they sneer at him for cowering from a sour, loose-legged tramp dressed up in their mother's old finery with all the seams let out to accommodate her pudding-like flesh.      
  
Treavor tolerates her until he's ten - almost a young man! - and she accuses him of some minor wrongdoing that wasn't his fault, "it was Morgan and Custis! They -!" but she cuts him off with a vicious slap, her glittering rings harder and sharper than her broad, doughy hand.    
  
Later he spits blood into Wallace's hand as he carefully dabs at Treavor's split lip. "I hate her. I fucking  _ hate _ her."    
  
"Where did you ever learn such language?" Wallace scolds, a nervous eye directed over his shoulder for Mrs Higgins and her wooden spoon, and it's funny because he  _ is _ a young man grown of eighteen. Treavor smiles, teeth bloodied, because there isn't much in this house that he shouldn't have learned that he hasn't learned from Wallace. Like pinching little tomatoes from the greenhouses, or sewing and the occasional foul oath when the needle goes awry.   
  
Oaths of a similar sort spill sing song from under his breath when he watches Geraldine's retreating back wobble tipsily down the corridor after luncheon to her suite of perfumed apartments where she goes when Treavor's father won't have her.   
  
"Freak," hisses Morgan, knocking into him.   
  
"Were you looking to join her?" Custis asks, laughing. "Father might give her to you to try if he's drunk enough."   
  
Treavor bites Custis before he's shoved to the ground and kicked black and blue, curled up like a snail shell ready to be squashed. The string of oaths grows longer until it might wind around the girth of the house like the coils of a giant Pandyssian boa. Silence falls at night but the whispered echoes of silken promises crawl through the halls.   
  
The twins are too old to be playing games really, but during a game of marbles, Custis's old favourite Cat's Eye seemingly leaps into his mouth and impossibly becomes lodged in his throat. He's purple in the face before he finally gags it out onto the floor in an ooze of bile and phlegm while his shrieking twin looks on in terror. 

A week later, one of the mounted stag heads falls on Morgan and just avoids skewering him with its great rack of antlers. His arm bleeds through the rent in his sleeve and he steers clear of the walls forever after, refusing even to walk under anything remotely likely to cause harm if it fell. Treavor keeps a quiet giggle to himself to watch Morgan swing wide arcs in his path to avoid passing beneath the chandeliers.    
  
One evening, Geraldine loses her way in the wing of the house where the first Lady Pendleton breathed her last, where even Wallace’s grimly fastidious old father won’t tread and won’t order the maids there, not even to keep it clean. When she finally reappears to sit at the dinner table that night she won’t speak a word. Afterwards, she grows twitchy and withdrawn, flinching from Lord Pendleton's touch, and begins lighting an Abbey's worth of candles around the house, spooking like a horse at every shadow and unexpected creak. She complains of fell noises in her wardrobe once the sun’s light can’t warm it, gibbering and dribbling, wide-eyed, come morning and her unnatural red hair going white at the roots. Then she starts seeing faces in the wallpaper and claws it off in strips, but it isn’t until she howls accusations at the paintings of dead Pendletons following her with cold, imperious eyes and flings gin on them with the intent to set them alight that Lord Pendleton has her locked in the attic. 

Treavor can’t remember if her withered old corpse is still up there, surely not, unless he misremembers when one of the maids bringing Geraldine her dinner left the door unlocked and the raving woman escaped, fleeing the house in a frenzy, naked as she came into the world. Treavor’s sure he recalls Mrs Higgins in the kitchen, whispering to her son in horrified tones, saying that the poor woman - foul old bitch, Treavor corrects privately - had thrown herself into the half-frozen river to escape the phantoms that plagued her.   
  
He hopes so. Treavor likes to think of her bones washing back up on shore, on the cold pebble beaches, nibbled by fish, but he doesn't tell Wallace. Wallace wouldn't like it; he's soft like that.

He tells Wallace when he’s in love, however. At thirteen, his decaying father is drowning in opium, but Treavor is free from grief and utterly in love with a radiant girl whose eyes would outshine the family silver, clever and wonderfully wicked besides. Her name is Waverly and her father is an old comrade in business and arms who visits Lord Pendleton like a circling vulture. Wallace nods at every word he’s told and Treavor just knows the older man is pleased for him, even if he doesn’t show it. Who couldn’t be?

He tells Wallace too when she breaks his heart, twice no less. Treavor proposes to her at fifteen with a glittering ring he’s scrimped and saved for, a ring she throws away from herself as hard as she can and slaps him and curses him for being a wretched fool, ugly and ignorant down to the bone. At nineteen, the second proposal is a much more carefully composed affair: his mother’s ring bound with a lock of his hair, tied together with string reddened in blood and vows and incantations pulled out of a mouthful of crushed blossoms signifying obedience and undying love. 

The sour green taste still lingers on his tongue when her captivated eyes gaze lovingly at the ring, and he starts to wonder if what he’s done will only last as long as the remaining blooms outside, before the winter comes to wither them and steal their scent - and that break in his conviction is just enough to free her. Fury boils in her eyes and he flees before he must face her ire.

He curses her name weakly when he sobs in his own bed after this final failed venture and Wallace feels the first inklings of fear for the young woman. Nothing ill befalls her, however, and she even comes to forgive the stupidity of her childhood friend.  _ Again _ . She invites him out to tea every Saturday and Treavor’s hollow cheeks grow altogether rosier again. Wallace finally lets out his breath. 

He knows of course. How could he not. But the milk never spoils in the kitchen, the bread remains fresher and hotter out of the oven longer. The spice cupboard hasn’t run out in years despite the mines’ dwindling profits. Never has a mouse been spied creeping the floors at night, though the cat is so old now all it’s good for is napping in sunbeams. He thinks it best to turn a blind eye because what’s the harm? He maintains that stance no matter how much he frets when Treavor is old enough to leave the house unattended, go where he pleases, and return in the unholiest of hours when Wallace’s eyes are burning and threatening to slip shut no matter how he has promised himself he will stay up and wait. 

The books Treavor brings home from these excursion don’t look any different from those on the family’s library shelves that Wallace has to dust every week, a little more worn perhaps, suspicious fluids on the spines, but Wallace doesn’t go blind the first time he happens to clap eyes on them. The song of the bones, however, Wallace feels crawl up his spine and he suggests very softly - breaking, for the first time, his pretense of ignorance - that perhaps milord might keep those hidden away. Just in case. The maids are fearful, superstitious creatures, and who knows when any one of them might say something foolish to an Overseer. Treavor obeys, for the most part, but Wallace suspects he’s bound the tongues of all the servants for safety’s sake, which might explain why a leaden weight sits on his tongue when he fingers the arc-and-fork pendant at his throat. It hurts a little, because Treavor should know Wallace is a man of sparing words.

Treavor learns early on from a tome older than the Abbey itself that the Outsider is only ever an ambiguous entity, has always been, and Treavor quickly loses interest in him. Instead, he troubles with the edge of the Void, which is all that he can reach, curling whispers from it around his fingers but does not care to draw the attention of its dark walker. He prefers simple, wicked little deeds: tying the tongues of his opponents in Parliament, having Custis’s coattails catch in the carriage door and dragged some way before the fabric tears and Custis cracks his wrist when he falls to the cobblestones.

The twins don’t bully Treavor much anymore. They used to, even after their narrowly avoided deaths before Geraldine died, but time has moved on and there have been one too many retributions following on the heels of their cruel japes and tricks. They don’t  _ know  _ what power it is that punishes them, but Wallace will take it with him to his grave that only once has Treavor not been responsible for the payback visited upon them, which was comparatively much more terrible than their crime - though not in Wallace’s eyes. Now, they ignore Treavor instead, which is just as nasty and unpleasant but it has its uses. They get so used to acting like he doesn’t exist, he ceases to be in their presence and they’ll say anything in front of him. Anything. 

Treavor sells these choice secrets he learns to shady sellers in crooked back alleys for books, bundles of herbs that itch the throat when burned, bones shards cobbled together, and vials of blood. Blood and other fluids Wallace tries so hard not to think about. The vital essences of doomed men, hanged men, and long dead men, men still living and imbued with power of every sort; that of the first born, the seventh born, the virile, the chaste, the honest, the dishonest, the craven, the learned.

He finds out just which he is when he is folding the clothes he’s just helped his master remove. Treavor is sitting indolently in an armchair, garbed only in a nightshirt, at Wallace’s back and idly twirling a silver knife that has no business being as ornate as it is. 

“Virgin’s blood is a powerful thing, Wallace. Did you know that?”

“I - I did not, milord.”

“Mmm. Hard to come by. A century ago you might have been put down a well and left to drown if you opened your legs before marriage and let the Outsider spread his taint in your bed and souls with such a sordid union. Virgins abound. You only had to look for a ringless hand. Nowadays, my word. We’re a city of harlots.”

Wallace doesn’t say anything but his face feels too hot and he thinks it best that he keep his back to his master. A sudden heat and presence behind him startles him enough that, when he turns, Treavor need only push him with a hand on his chest to have him sprawled on the bed. Wallace could die of shame at the noise that breaks free of his throat when Treavor straddles him with bony gracelessness.

“There are many things I can give you, Wallace -” Treavor suggests softly. Even without the knife in hand, there’s a glint to his eye that causes Wallace to fear him a little. It’s ridiculous. He’s never had reason -

His Lordship is naked under that nightgown and Wallace is all too aware of it. 

“I swear I - milord, I desire nothing -”

“Oh now we both know that that’s not true. I never thought you a liar, Wallace.”

“Please -” Wallace’s voice cracks as he begs.

“Yes? And what will you give me in return Wallace? Your service, your toil? Your sweat and blood?”

“All of that and more if you’ll have it -”

“Your seed too?” Treavor whispers in his ear, hand between Wallace’s legs and stroking a low, desperate rasp of sound from Wallace’s throat.

“ _ Everything _ .” 

Afterwards, Treavor turns Wallace’s hand in his, facing it down towards the rumpled sheets, and draws the silver blade neatly and cleanly through the flesh on the back of Wallace’s arm. It stings but the wound is shallow and Treavor even binds it up when he’s spilled all he needs into little glass vials. The pain fades under his thin-boned hands.

“Time and a place for theatrics, my darling Wallace,” he says as though he’s lecturing a student. “Wouldn’t do much good to cut through the palm of your hand. It would never heal what with all your work.” He lights a cigarette and leans back against Wallace’s broad chest to smoke it. 

“I don’t see why you took it at all,” Wallace grumbles, deliberately not thinking better of winding his arm around Treavor’s narrow waist. “It’s not as though it’s any good to you now. You took it now that I’m - well - now that I’m no longer -” 

Treavor laughs at his embarrassment, honest mirth crinkling his eyes.

“Virgin blood is blood hitherto unused for occult purposes. Makes no difference that we’ve bedded.” The next kiss he presses to Wallace’s mouth is hot and tastes of ash and smugness. He whispers, lips brushing featherlight: “I just wanted to see if you would.” 

Still mostly naked, bruises sucked into the side of his neck, Wallace feels used and more than a little stupid, the mockery cutting deeper than the silver knife. He should really push the wicked lordling away and get dressed, head held as high as he can manage considering what they’ve just been up to. To his shame, he doesn’t but Treavor takes that sting out of Wallace’s wounded pride too the next time he visits Wallace’s bed in the servant’s quarters. He comes under the pretence of acquiring the excesses of wanton flesh but his kisses burn with the same hunger he claws into Wallace’s shoulders, and afterwards he stays contentedly in Wallace’s arms. Treavor leaves empty-handed but Wallace’s chest feels lighter and freer than it’s ever been.


End file.
